R-Point

R-Point (Korean: 알 포인트) is a 2004 South Korean wartime action horror film written and directed by Kong Su-chang. Set in Vietnam in 1972, during the Vietnam War, it stars Kam Woo-sung and Son Byong-ho as members of the South Korean military in Vietnam. Most of the movie was shot in Cambodia. Bokor Hill Station plays a prominent part of the movie, in this case doubling as a French colonial plantation.[2][3][4] In 2011, Palisades Tartan re-released this film on DVD under the title Ghosts of War.[5]

R-Point
Theatrical poster
Hangul알 포인트
Revised RomanizationAl pointeu
McCune–ReischauerAl p‘oint‘ŭ
Directed byKong Su-chang
Produced byChoi Kang-hyeok
Chang Yoon-hyun
Written byKong Su-chang
StarringKam Woo-sung
Son Byong-ho
Oh Tae-kyung
Park Won-sang
Lee Sun-kyun
Ahn Nae-sang
Kim Byeong-cheol
Jeon Kyeong-ho
Mun Yeong-dong
Music byDalpalan
CinematographySeok Hyeong-jing
Edited byNam Na-yeong
Distributed byCinema Service
Release date
  • 13 August 2004 (2004-08-13)
Running time
107 minutes
CountrySouth Korea
LanguageKorean
Box office$6.7 million[1]

Plot

On 7 January 1972, the South Korean base in Nha-Trang, Vietnam, receives a radio transmission from a missing platoon that has been presumed dead. The scene switches to a patient full of bandages being asked if Donkey Three (the platoon that sent the radio message) was his unit. The patient says it's impossible and that everyone in his unit was dead. The man then asks how it was possible that they have been sending transmissions and it is already the third one for that month. The patient swears they're really dead and he collected their tags himself. He said that there is no Viet Con in R-point and he watched all his colleagues die.

We then see Lieutenant Choi Tae-in having fun with his colleague and visiting a brothel. The sound of a gunshot wakes him up. He goes out to check and sees a lady who tries to grab something from her bucket. Lieutenant Choi shoots her right away and sees her rifle. His colleague, Private Kim, dies in the next room (most likely shot by the lady).

The lieutenant heads back to the headquarters to report. The superior tells him that they will bury the incident. In turn, the veteran and decorated Lieutenant will lead a squad of eight soldiers, including Sergeant Jin Chang-rok to assist him, to extract the missing soldiers from Romeo point (R-Point) in one week. Upon arriving, Sergeant Oh asked for them to take a picture as a souvenir. Afterwards, they immediately encounter and defeat a Vietnamese woman with a machine gun. They later find a tombstone with markings that said a hundred years ago, the Chinese killed the Vietnamese and dumped them into the lake. After that, they filled the lake and built a temple on it. Further, it said “Wherever you go, I’ll be there. If you have blood on your hands, you can’t go back.”

After their first night, a huge, empty mansion suddenly appeared where they set up their base. While checking the area, Corporal Joh Byung-hoon peed and gets left behind by his group. He sees other soldiers and followed them thinking they were from his unit. He sees the helmet of one of the soldiers with writings “Jung-Suk, wait for me” then the soldiers suddenly disappeared. The other members of Corporal Joh’s unit searched for him and found him hiding in a cave and terrified to death. Corporal Joh relayed the incident to his unit but they refused to believe him. He checked his colleagues’ helmet to find the one he saw earlier, but no helmet had the same markings.

A group of American soldiers came to check their things that are in the building. Before leaving, they warned Lieutenant Choi that nothing and no one survives in R-Point but did not give more details. The unit continues to contact the headquarters. While fixing the radio, Corporal Byun Moon-Sub received a transmission from a French unit stationed nearby. A French army corporal named Jacques sent a message and said he has a twin brother named Paul who is also in the army. The Lieutenant however confirmed that they’re the only unit in the area. Outside, Sergeant Oh confronts Corporal Joh regarding the helmet incident earlier. He says that it belongs to one of the soldiers who went missing.

Before calling it a night, the soldiers happily danced to the radio that Corporal Byun fixed. However, their party was immediately cut short by voices of terrified screaming men recorded in the radio. On their second day, a soldier reports that another colleague is missing, Private Jung, who is supposed to be on duty from 6:00. While searching, a pool of blood suddenly drenches Sergeant Park. They then find Private Jung’s dead body hanging from a rope.

Upon returning to their base, the unit finally reaches the headquarters and reported what happened. On the radio, Captain Park said that Private Jung was one of the missing soldiers that the unit is supposed to rescue. When asked how many soldiers are in the unit at the moment, the Lieutenant responds that 1 is down and 9 are left. The Captain shouts that they started the mission with 9 soldiers. Later that night, the soldiers tried to recall Private Jung’s face but cannot. Corporal Joh remembers that Private Jung was not with them at the dock but was at the beach when they took their pictures. Lieutenant Choi also realizes that he was indeed one of the missing soldiers, through their picture in his file.

Throughout their stay in R-point, Lieutenant Choi has been seeing a lady in áo dài (traditional Vietnamese dress). He decides to follow her and finds a graveyard of French soldiers with a cross for the twin soldiers Jacques and Paul (the former sent a radio transmission earlier). Sergeant Oh then encounters his friend (the one with the helmet). He runs away and accidentally falls for the booby trap that they have set up earlier and dies.

On the 4th day, the unit divides into two groups to search the area again for clues on who sent the transmission to the headquarters. The lieutenant’s group finds the corpses of the American soldiers they met earlier which indicate that they were also just ghosts. A terrified Corporate Joh, who has been seeing ghosts, mistakenly thinks that he saw another and accidentally fires at Sergeant Mah (the cook) who immediately dies. Back at the base, the soldiers checked the room of the Americans and found it looking abandoned for a long time with old equipment.

On the 5th day, they were able to reach the headquarters and requested for a helicopter. The earliest rescue, however, will come the next day. Sergeant Jin then seemingly returns and says they should have never come to R-Point. Though he was able to state his name and rank completely at the Lieutenant’s request, he suddenly changes his expression and beheads Sergeant Park before being shot dead by the soldiers. Lieutenant Choi then orders everyone to verify their names and ranks. Corporal Byun then also changes expression and removes the pin of a grenade, blinding the youngest soldier, Sergeant Jang Young-soo, who was standing near him.

While the lieutenant helps Sergeant Jang, Corporal Lee Jae-pil laments to Corporal Joh who also changes his expression and shoots him. The lieutenant then kills Corporal Joh right away. With two of them left, Lieutenant Cho finds a picture of foreign soldiers with the lady in áo dài. When she appears, Lieutenant Cho asks Sergeant Jang to pick up his rifle. Knowing he may turn out like his colleagues, the lieutenant instructs the Sergeant to point the weapon at his direction and fire. On the next morning, Sergeant Jang was found alone by the rescuing team, without the corpses of the 8 other soldiers from his unit.

Cast

Release

Marketing

Before the film was released, filmmakers conducted viral marketing to promote the film. The official website, www.rpoint.com, carried several fictional articles such as a journal written by an American war correspondent, statements made by various soldiers who witnessed events portrayed in the film, radio transmissions supposedly received by Korean soldiers, Internet news links about missing Korean soldiers in Vietnam, and a fictional timeline of R-Point.

Reception

Awards and nominations
2004 Blue Dragon Film Awards[6]
2004 Korean Film Awards
2005 Grand Bell Awards
  • Best Sound - Kang Joo-seok, Lead Sound
  • Nomination - Best New Director - Kong Su-chang

See also

References
  1. "R Point - Box Office Mojo". boxofficemojo.com.
  2. Yang, Sung-jin (19 August 2004). "R-Point puts fresh spin on the horrors of war". The Korea Herald via Hancinema. Retrieved 28 May 2016.
  3. Kim, Hyun-jung (17 May 2016). "R-Point". Korean Film Biz Zone. Retrieved 28 May 2016.
  4. Kim, Kyu-hyun (27 February 2006). "R-Point movie and DVD [review]". www.ohmynews.com via Hancinema. Retrieved 28 May 2016.
  5. "Ghosts of War". Amazon.co.uk. Retrieved 7 April 2019.
  6. "R-POINT". www.cinemasie.com.

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