R-POINT

'''R-Point''' (알 포인트) is a 2004 Korean horror film written and directed by Su-chang Kong and starring Gam Wu-seong and Son Byung-ho. It is set in 1972 Vietnam, during the Vietnam War. Instead of filming in Vietnam most of the movie was shot in Cambodia.

Contents

Timeline before the film

Synopsis

Cast

Awards

Trivia

See also

External links

Timeline before the film

★ 111 BCE to 939 CE– Chinese soldiers kill many Vietnamese villagers and dump them in a lake. Which is covered over and a temple is erected in honor of the dead Vietnamese.

★ Mid 20th century – French soldiers Jacques and Paul along with other French colonists settle on the island in a plantation, at some point during the First Indochina War, they were killed.

★ 1970 – An American helicopter is shot down over the island and the Americans are killed.

★ 1972 - Battalion 53 goes missing somewhere on the island.

Synopsis

The film is set in 1972 during the Vietnam War. A group of Korean soldiers from Battalion 53 fail to report back from a strategically important island 150 kilometers south of Saigon referred to as R-Point. The soldiers have been missing for 6 months and are presumed dead when a shortwave radio transmission from R-Point is received from the missing soldiers claiming they are alive.

A renowned combat veteran LT Choi Tae-in is given nine days to lead a team of nine soldiers to find the missing Battalion 53 of which he was the only surviving member. They recruit members of this team by promising them that they can leave the army if they return.
They set sail to the island referred to as R-Point and upon arrival they take a group photograph of themselves and head out into the jungle. In the jungle they are ambushed by the Vietcong, they take cover and LT Choi fires a rocket launcher at the Vietcong dugout, when they check for survivors they find the decomposing body of a Vietcong fighter and a young girl who is still alive. They argue over what to do with her, while one of the soldiers looks at her bracelet which has a cat bell tied to it and is told his fingers will rot off if he steals a dead persons stuff. Eventually they decide to leave her to die.
After a while they come across a flat field which has a tombstone at the entrance with carvings on it that say “Hundreds of years ago the Chinese killed the Vietnamese and dumped the bodies in the river here, it has since been filled in and a temple erected” a second stone says “All those with blood on their hand will not leave this place”. That night the soldiers camp there, while one of them reveals he is a mortician's son and that the area the bodies are buried is not a suitable area for the living or the dead and that it is only ghosts that are drawn to the area.

They wake up in the morning to find they slept right in front of an abandoned French Plantation. They search the house, clear all the rooms and set up base. On the night the two soldiers that have been assigned to guard the base spot Private Chung walking off into the forest. During the night LT Choi hears a cat bell ringing, as he looks out of the window he sees the girl they killed, who is now wearing a white dress and is walking around the plantation.
In the morning it is reported that Private Chung is missing, he is found when a fairly large amount of blood falls on one of the soldiers and they find him hanging from the top of the plantation. They finally manage to get a radio signal back to their base, upon which they find out Private Chung was one of the missing soldiers that they were looking for. They also realize that he wasn't with them when they were at the dock, so they have a look at the photo they took when they got to the beach and private Chung is on it.
That night, while all stationed in the plantation, a US Army helicopter comes in informing LT Choi that they come to check up on the electricity weekly. The leader of the US troops warns Choi that a massacre occurred, in which numerous French soldiers were slaughtered. The leader of the American troops then parts LT Choi with a final message, stating that him and his troops would not live throughout the next 5 days. During the night, the soldiers dance to music, but are startled when a message from previous soldiers show up on the tape.

Cast

★ Lieutenant Choi (Gam Wu-seong)

★ Sergeant Jin (Son Byung-ho)

★ Private Byun (Mun Yeong-dong)

Awards

★ 2005 Won the Grand Bell Award for Best Sound Effects.

Trivia

★ Several scenes weren't even filmed due to money and time factors. Including an extended opening where Lieutenant Choi's platoon is decimated while in battle with the Viet-Cong in a lumber camp. This scene would then be followed by the filmed opening in Saigon.

★ Locations in Cambodia included Bokor Hill Station, which was also used as a location in the 2002 Matt Dillon film ''City of Ghosts''.

★ One scene in the trailer is shown as a night scene while it is a day scene in the finished movie.

★ The white dress in which the female ghost appears is the traditional Vietnamese gown known as an Áo dài.

See also

★ K-Horror

External links

★

★ IGN R-Point Review http://filmforce.ign.com/articles/690/690760p1.html