8 / 10
My Way is the most ambitious Korean war film ever produced. Kang Je-gyu spent twenty-five million dollars making it. The film was the most expensive Korean production in history at the time of release. It follows a Korean marathon runner across four armies and three continents from 1928 to 1944. The premise sounds impossible. The execution is mostly successful. The 8 reflects honest evaluation of a film that reaches for something almost nobody else has tried to film and lands the reach more often than it misses.
Kang Je-gyu had previously directed Shiri (1999) and Taegukgi (2004). Both were major Korean blockbusters. Taegukgi remains one of the best Korean War films ever made. My Way was meant to be his international breakthrough. The film underperformed in Korea because Korean audiences were uncomfortable with the sympathetic portrayal of a Korean soldier wearing a Japanese uniform. The film did better internationally because international audiences were not carrying the same historical wounds.
The True Story
The film is loosely inspired by a real photograph. The photograph shows a Korean man in German Wehrmacht uniform being captured by American forces shortly after the D-Day landings in June 1944. The man was identified as Yang Kyoungjong. He had been conscripted into the Japanese Imperial Army in Korea, captured by Soviet forces during the Battles of Khalkhin Gol in 1939, conscripted into the Soviet Army to fight Germans, captured by German forces during Operation Barbarossa, conscripted into the Wehrmacht to defend the Atlantic Wall, and finally captured by American forces at Normandy.
The full story is more complicated than the photograph suggests. Historians have questioned aspects of the Yang account. Some have argued the photographed individual may not be Korean at all. The film treats the premise as factual foundation rather than as documentary reconstruction. Kang uses the basic shape of the story to construct his own characters and his own plot. The film is fiction inspired by history rather than history filmed as fiction. The distinction matters for evaluating what the film is actually trying to accomplish.
The Setup
Kim Jun-shik (Jang Dong-gun) is a Korean marathon runner training under Japanese colonial rule in 1928. He grows up working as a rickshaw puller in Seoul. He competes against Tatsuo Hasegawa (Joe Odagiri), the grandson of the Japanese commander overseeing the region. The two boys develop a rivalry that defines both their lives. Jun-shik wants to compete in the Olympic marathon. Tatsuo wants to win the same race. The colonial situation makes their competition more than athletic. A Korean beating a Japanese in athletic competition is a political event regardless of how the two competitors feel about it.
The two are eventually conscripted into the Japanese Imperial Army and sent to fight Soviet forces at Nomonhan in 1939. Tatsuo has become a Japanese officer. Jun-shik is a Korean conscript under his command. The hierarchy makes their childhood rivalry impossible to maintain in normal form. They have to find new terms for their relationship under conditions that neither of them controls. The film is basically about whether they can.
The Cast
Jang Dong-gun plays Jun-shik through more than fifteen years of physical transformation. The character starts as a teenage rickshaw puller and ends as a hardened soldier who has fought across three continents. Jang carries the entire arc through performance choices that gradually shift from idealistic to exhausted to determined to numb. The performance is one of the best Korean lead performances of the previous twenty years. Jang had been a leading man in Korean cinema for over a decade. My Way is the role that demonstrates what he was capable of when given material that required full commitment.
Joe Odagiri plays Tatsuo as the more complex of the two leads. Tatsuo is a Japanese officer in an imperial military that is committing systematic atrocities across Asia. He is also a man whose childhood rivalry with Jun-shik has become the defining relationship of his life. Odagiri plays the contradiction without resolving it. Tatsuo is not redeemed. Tatsuo is not vilified. Tatsuo is a man trying to maintain personal integrity within a system that does not allow integrity. The performance is brutal because Odagiri refuses to make Tatsuo easy to categorize.
Fan Bingbing appears in supporting role as Shirai, a Chinese sniper fighting Japanese forces. Her role is brief but memorable. The casting of a major Chinese star in a Korean production indicates the international ambition of the project. Fan Bingbing was at the height of her career when the film was made. Her presence gave Chinese audiences a reason to engage with the film. The casting also generated diplomatic complications because the character is fighting Japanese forces in occupied China.
The supporting cast of Japanese, Russian, and German actors creates the ensemble work the film requires. The film is genuinely multilingual. Characters speak Korean, Japanese, Russian, German, and occasionally English depending on which army they are currently embedded with. The linguistic complexity is part of the achievement. Most international productions cheat on language. My Way commits to the linguistic reality of its premise.
For Writers
The film’s central relationship works because Kang establishes the rivalry between Jun-shik and Tatsuo in childhood before history forces them into roles that cannot be reconciled. The childhood material is not nostalgia. The childhood material is structural. Once the audience understands what these two boys meant to each other when they were teenagers, every subsequent scene between them carries the weight of what they used to be. The lesson for writers is that long relationships between characters benefit from establishing the relationship before the central conflict begins. A rivalry born inside a war is just a rivalry. A rivalry that survived a war between two specific human beings is a tragedy. The same dramatic material lands at different emotional weights depending on how much foundation the writer has laid. My Way lays substantial foundation. The investment pays off across the runtime.
The Nomonhan Sequence
The Battle of Nomonhan in 1939 sets the structural pattern for the rest of the film. Japanese forces engaged Soviet forces along the Mongolian border. The Japanese lost. The defeat shaped Japanese strategic thinking for the rest of the war. My Way reconstructs the battle with substantial physical commitment. Practical effects. Real explosions. Soldiers in mud. Tanks in motion across actual landscape. The sequence runs for substantial duration and operates as the first major demonstration of what the production was willing to spend on physical reality.
Kang shoots the battle from inside the Japanese unit. The audience experiences Soviet attacks the way Japanese soldiers experienced them. The cinematography puts the camera close to the action. The cutting is fast without becoming incomprehensible. The audience can follow the spatial logic of the battle while feeling the chaos that the soldiers feel. The combination is harder to achieve than American audiences may recognize. Most war films choose either clear spatial logic or experiential chaos. My Way attempts both and largely succeeds.
The sequence ends with Jun-shik and Tatsuo captured by Soviet forces. The capture sets up the next major segment of the film. The film does not slow down to mark the transition. The Soviet labor camp opens in the next sequence. The audience is asked to keep up. The pacing assumption is that the audience can follow rapid geographic and political shifts because the audience is invested in the central characters. The investment carries the structural shifts.
The Soviet Sequences
The Soviet labor camp sequences operate as the emotional center of the film. Jun-shik and Tatsuo are imprisoned together under conditions that erase the distinction between Korean and Japanese. They are simply prisoners. The Soviet guards do not care about the colonial hierarchies that shaped the previous Japanese army sequences. The two men have to survive together or die separately. The choice strips away the imperial framework that has structured their relationship for the previous twenty years.
The labor camp sequences also introduce Shirai, the Chinese fighter Fan Bingbing plays. Shirai has been captured by Soviet forces while fighting against Japan in occupied China. Her presence forces Jun-shik and Tatsuo to confront the broader Japanese atrocities that they had been able to ignore while operating within the Imperial Army. Shirai’s existence is the moral problem the rest of the film cannot resolve. Tatsuo cannot apologize for what his country has done. Jun-shik cannot pretend he did not wear the uniform that did the doing. The film does not offer easy reconciliation. The film also does not offer the easy condemnation that contemporary Korean audiences may have wanted.
The German Sequences
The third major segment of the film follows Jun-shik and Tatsuo as they are forced into the Wehrmacht and sent to defend the Atlantic Wall in occupied France. The transition is rapid. The film does not have time to develop the German context with the depth it gave the Japanese and Soviet contexts. The German sequences operate as the final movement rather than as a fully developed segment of their own.
The Normandy sequences are where the production budget shows. Kang spent substantial money reconstructing the D-Day landings from the German defender perspective. The audience experiences the invasion the way the soldiers in the bunkers experienced it. Allied bombardment. Allied landing craft visible through bunker apertures. Allied soldiers crossing the beach toward fixed German positions. The Normandy sequences match the scale that American productions like Saving Private Ryan established for the genre.
The film’s central image arrives during the Normandy sequence. Jun-shik in German uniform encountering Allied forces. The image is the photograph that inspired the entire production. The audience that has watched the previous two hours of film understands how he got there. The image carries the accumulated weight of everything that came before. The sequence is the payoff the film has been building toward since the opening.
For Writers
My Way demonstrates how a single iconic image can structure an entire long narrative. The film exists because of a photograph. The photograph shows a Korean man in German uniform being captured at Normandy. Everything in the film is constructed to deliver the audience to that image with full understanding of how the man got there. The image works as climax because the audience has earned the right to see it. The lesson for writers is that powerful endings work best when the entire story has been pointed toward them from the opening. The reader should arrive at the climactic moment feeling the inevitability of it. The author should know from page one where the story is going. The structural discipline of writing toward a known ending produces stronger work than writing without a destination and discovering the ending in revision. Kang knew where My Way was going. The film reaches that destination with full force.
The Marathon Motif
The marathon running of the opening sequences returns at the closing. Jun-shik is identified by his physical capacity for endurance. The marathon training in colonial Korea is what makes him capable of surviving what comes after. The marathon is also the motif Kang returns to in the final sequences to mark the emotional resolution of the film. The motif works because the film has earned it. The opening footage of teenage Jun-shik running through Korean streets becomes weighted with everything that happens between then and the ending.
The motif also operates as commentary on colonial athletics. The Japanese Empire used athletic competition as a propaganda tool. Korean victories were claimed as Japanese victories because the Korean athletes were technically Japanese subjects. The 1936 Berlin Olympics included Korean marathoner Sohn Kee-chung competing for Japan. He won gold. Korean media celebrated as Korean victory. Japanese media celebrated as Japanese victory. The same race meant different things to different audiences. My Way uses the marathon motif to engage with this colonial framework without making it the central subject of the film.
The Length Problem
The film runs one hundred forty-three minutes. The runtime is too long for the structure and too short for the ambition. A fully developed version of the premise would run four hours. A tighter version would run two hours and focus on a more contained portion of the story. The actual cut tries to deliver all four armies and three continents within a runtime that does not have enough space for any of them to be fully developed. The Japanese sequences feel right. The Soviet sequences feel rushed. The German sequences feel underdeveloped. The film delivers the ambition without quite delivering the runtime the ambition requires.
The compression also forces dramatic compression. Characters who deserved more development get less. Supporting figures who would have anchored sequences in a longer cut function as plot devices in the actual cut. The compression is the major structural weakness of the film. Audiences who can accept the compression will respond well. Audiences who resist the compression will find the pacing frustrating.
The Reception Problem
Korean audiences responded poorly. The film grossed less than expected in domestic release. The discomfort came from several sources. The sympathetic portrayal of Tatsuo as a Japanese officer was difficult for Korean audiences whose grandparents had lived under Japanese colonial rule. The presentation of Jun-shik in Japanese uniform fighting Soviet forces was difficult for audiences who associated Japanese-uniformed Koreans with collaborationist tradition. The film was asking Korean audiences to engage with material that did not allow easy ideological alignment.
The international reception was warmer. European audiences who lacked the specific Korean historical context responded to the film as ambitious war cinema rather than as ideologically uncomfortable colonial reflection. The film performed reasonably well in Japan, where audiences had different reasons to engage with the material. The international circulation has continued to grow since release. The film has slowly built the audience that the domestic Korean release did not produce.
Craft Note
Craft Note
My Way attempts something international cinema rarely attempts. The film commits to the full multilingual reality of its premise. Characters speak the language they would actually speak. Korean characters speak Korean. Japanese characters speak Japanese. Soviet characters speak Russian. German characters speak German. The film does not cheat the way most international productions cheat. The cheat that most productions deploy is having all characters speak the production’s primary language with appropriate accents. My Way does not cheat. The cost is that audiences have to read subtitles for substantial portions of the film. The benefit is that the linguistic reality of the situation becomes part of the dramatic content. Jun-shik does not speak Japanese well at the opening. Jun-shik speaks Japanese fluently by the time he is fighting at Nomonhan. The linguistic shift marks the colonial conditioning that has happened in his life. The film does not announce this. The film simply lets the language change as the character changes. Most international productions would not have noticed this kind of detail. My Way notices everything. The aggregate of small details is what gives the film its substantial dramatic weight.
The Verdict
An 8. My Way is the most ambitious Korean war film ever produced and one of the more ambitious international war films of the previous twenty years. Kang Je-gyu reached further than most directors attempt and landed the reach more often than he missed. The central performances by Jang Dong-gun and Joe Odagiri are excellent. The physical production at Nomonhan and Normandy hits the scale the genre requires. The multilingual commitment honors the actual historical situation. The childhood foundation gives the relationship between the two leads the emotional weight that the larger plot requires.
The film has flaws. The length compression damages the Soviet and German sequences. The marathon motif works but verges on overdeployment at the closing. The historical premise is more complicated than the film acknowledges. The Korean domestic reception was understandably mixed.
None of those flaws are sufficient to lower the rating below 8. The achievement is substantial. The film deserves more attention from international audiences than it has received. Find it. Watch it with patience. Accept the compression as the cost of the ambition.
FAQ
Is this a true story?
Loosely. The film is inspired by a 1944 photograph that allegedly shows a Korean man in German Wehrmacht uniform being captured by American forces at Normandy. The man was identified as Yang Kyoungjong. Historians have questioned aspects of his account. The film treats the basic premise as factual foundation while constructing original characters and dramatic plot around it. The relationship between Jun-shik and Tatsuo is fictional. The basic geographic trajectory of capture and conscription is based on the historical premise.
Who directed it?
Kang Je-gyu. He previously directed Shiri (1999), the Korean spy thriller that established him as a major commercial filmmaker, and Taegukgi (2004), one of the best Korean War films ever made. My Way was his largest production. The budget of twenty-five million dollars was rare for Korean cinema at the time.
Why did it flop in Korea?
Korean audiences were uncomfortable with several elements. The sympathetic portrayal of Tatsuo as a Japanese officer in an imperial military that committed colonial atrocities was difficult. The depiction of Jun-shik in Japanese uniform fighting Soviet forces was difficult. The film was asking Korean audiences to engage with material that did not align easily with established Korean historical narrative. Domestic box office was substantially lower than expected.
How does it compare to Taegukgi?
Taegukgi is the better film. The Korean War material is closer to Korean audiences and the dramatic focus on two brothers fighting on opposite sides of the same war produces a tighter dramatic structure. My Way is more ambitious in scope but less concentrated in execution. Both films are worth watching. Taegukgi should probably come first.
Is Fan Bingbing actually in this?
Yes, in supporting role as Shirai, a Chinese sniper fighting Japanese forces. She had been at the height of her career when the film was made. Her presence gave Chinese audiences a reason to engage with the production. The role is brief but memorable. She does not appear in the third act after the labor camp sequences.
How accurate are the battle sequences?
The Nomonhan sequences are substantially accurate. The Battle of Nomonhan in 1939 played out roughly as the film depicts. The Normandy sequences are accurate at the broad level but specific tactical details are dramatized. The film is not attempting documentary reconstruction. The film is attempting dramatic recreation of battles the production could afford to stage at scale. Both battle sequences are among the better staged in international war cinema.
Why does the film use so many languages?
Because the historical situation involved characters from multiple national backgrounds operating in multiple geographic contexts. The film commits to the linguistic reality rather than cheating with single-language dialogue. Characters speak Korean, Japanese, Russian, German, and occasionally English depending on which army they are currently embedded with. The multilingual commitment is one of the production’s distinctive achievements.
Is the marathon motif effective?
Mostly. The childhood marathon sequences establish the character traits the rest of the film tests. The motif returns at the closing to mark emotional resolution. The deployment is reasonable. The motif slightly overworks in the final sequences but does not damage the broader film. Audiences willing to accept the symbolic weight will respond. Audiences resistant to overt motif deployment may find the closing slightly heavy.
How long is the film?
One hundred forty-three minutes. The runtime is too long for tight pacing and too short for the full ambition the premise requires. A fully developed version would run four hours. A tighter version would focus on a single segment. The actual cut compresses substantial historical material into a runtime that does not quite serve it. Audiences should expect to feel the compression in the Soviet and German sequences.
Should I watch this if I do not like war films?
Possibly yes. My Way is structured as character study within war setting rather than as battle-focused war film. The central relationship between Jun-shik and Tatsuo carries more of the runtime than the action sequences do. Audiences interested in character drama within historical context will respond to material that pure action audiences may find slow. The film is more accessible to general viewers than its premise might suggest.