<\/strong><\/p>\n Director: Brian Iglesias<\/strong><\/p>\n \n While just about every modern tragedy is an instant candidate to be adapted into a big budget feature film, many historical events, particularly the lesser-known ones, are easily overlooked. It may sound as though I’m observing that trend in a negative light, but if anything, it’s probably a good thing because then there’s more of a chance the material would be handled in a documentary format instead and given proper representation as is the case with Chosin.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/strong><\/p>\n On June 25th<\/sup>, 1950, North Korea invaded South Korea initiating the Korean War. The United Nations Security Council condemned North Korea after which the US, amongst other countries, assembled their troops. With WWII barely in the past, the US was nowhere near ready to engage in another war, however, had the US not stepped in, millions of innocent lives would have been lost. Therefore, there was no choice but to send whatever we could whether they be professional military men or reserves with little to no training.<\/p>\n \n The American armed forces followed what at the time seemed to be the best course of action, but little did they know another factor was about to demolish that plan, the Chinese. On November 27th<\/sup>, 1950, the Chinese People\u2019s Volunteer Army attacked, encircling the US forces and cutting them off from supplies and escape. Even with the odds against them, being completely outnumbered by the Chinese and suffering through below freezing conditions, the US forces pushed on and managed to airlift out some wounded and retreat to the coast for a more thorough evacuation.<\/p>\n \n The story of The Chosin River Campaign is monumentally significant, yet poorly covered in high school textbooks. In fact, the entire Korean War was sequestered to a tiny portion of class time. On top of that, Chosin<\/em> is the very first documentary to cover the event. When you consider how many lives were lost and how many were changed forever during just those few days, the lack of coverage is astonishing.<\/p>\n \n On the other hand, this is a film and while the subject matter may be of prime importance, there\u2019s no ignoring the fact that Chosin<\/em> is almost entirely a talking head documentary. On the one hand, there\u2019s really very little director Brian Iglesias could do when it came to gathering material. He\u2019s got a fantastic assortment of veterans, most of which are naturals in front of the camera, but when it comes to actual footage and still images from the 1950s, the resources are limited. There\u2019s just enough imagery of the actual events to allow the viewer to get a decent sense of what the environment was like, but not enough, as heartless as this may sound, to up the film\u2019s entertainment value.<\/p>\n \n There are a handful of interviewee stories that are clearly important, but when you\u2019ve only got their words to latch onto, are just not as effective. On the other hand, Chosin<\/em> also has quite a few moments that not only don\u2019t need image accompaniment, but don\u2019t even need a shot of the storyteller, the recollection is so profound. Chosin<\/em> may paint a fuzzy picture when it comes to the grander military movements and tactics, but when it comes to the personal experiences, it\u2019s overflowing with heart wrenching details.<\/p>\n \n It\u2019s easy to picture untrained recruits first learning to assemble their weapons on the way to the war zone as well as the more terrifying moments, like when one man nearly lost his life in a ditch packed with dead bodies. One veteran describes the massive amounts of Chinese tracer bullets flying through the night sky as having an \u201ceerie beauty\u201d and barely needs to say much more than that to paint the picture. Many watching this film likely weren\u2019t in Chosin, but sympathize with the interviewees\u2019 pain and suffering with frostbite, literally freezing eyeballs, wounds that didn\u2019t bleed due to the temperatures and even one man\u2019s heel falling right off when he took his sock off.<\/p>\n \n
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