MOVIEmeter
SEE RANK
Up 5,558 this week

The Coast Guard (2002)
"Hae anseon" (original title)

6.5
Your rating:
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 -/10 X  
Ratings: 6.5/10 from 2,090 users  
Reviews: 11 user | 23 critic

At South Korea's border with the North, troops guard the coast. Each bullies those ranking beneath him; tensions are high. PFC Kang and his friend Private Kim are on patrol when drinking ... See full summary »

Director:

Writer:

0Check in
0Share...

User Lists

Related lists from IMDb users

a list of 1042 titles created 4 weeks ago
 
a list of 35 titles created 23 Dec 2011
 
a list of 149 titles created 5 months ago
 
a list of 80 titles created 2 months ago
 
a list of 228 titles created 3 months ago
 

Connect with IMDb


Share this Rating

Title: The Coast Guard (2002)

The Coast Guard (2002) on IMDb 6.5/10

Want to share IMDb's rating on your own site? Use the HTML below.

Take The Quiz!

Test your knowledge of The Coast Guard.
3 wins & 1 nomination. See more awards »

Photos

Learn more

People who liked this also liked... 

Action | Drama | War
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 8/10 X  

A drama about the fate of brothers forced to fight in the Korean War.

Director: Je-kyu Kang
Stars: Dong-gun Jang, Bin Won, Eun-ju Lee
Drama | War
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 7.6/10 X  

Director Terrence Malick's adaptation of James Jones' autobiographical 1962 novel, focusing on the conflict at Guadalcanal during the second World War.

Director: Terrence Malick
Stars: Nick Nolte, Jim Caviezel, Sean Penn
Ran (1985)
Action | Drama | War
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 8.3/10 X  

An elderly lord abdicates to his three sons, and the two corrupt ones turn against him.

Director: Akira Kurosawa
Stars: Tatsuya Nakadai, Akira Terao, Jinpachi Nezu
Action | Drama | War
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 6.7/10 X  

Story centers on a battle during China's Warring States Period, a series of civil wars, which spanned from the 5th to the 3rd century B.C. Based on a popular Japanese manga, which was in turn based a Japanese novel inspired by Warring States history in China.

Director: Chi Leung 'Jacob' Cheung
Stars: Andy Lau, Sung-kee Ahn, Zhiwen Wang
Days of Glory (2006)
Drama | War
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 7/10 X  

During WWII, four North African men enlist in the French army to liberate that country from Nazi oppression, and to fight French discrimination.

Director: Rachid Bouchareb
Stars: Jamel Debbouze, Samy Naceri, Roschdy Zem
The Patriot (2000)
Action | Drama | War
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 7/10 X  

Peaceful farmer Benjamin Martin is driven to lead the Colonial Militia during the American Revolution when a sadistic British officer murders his son.

Director: Roland Emmerich
Stars: Mel Gibson, Heath Ledger, Joely Richardson
Drama | History | War
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 7.7/10 X  

A young English boy struggles to survive under Japanese occupation during World War II.

Director: Steven Spielberg
Stars: Christian Bale, John Malkovich, Miranda Richardson
Drama | War | Action
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 7/10 X  

A true story about four Allied POW's who endure harsh treatment from their Japanese captors during World War II while being forced to build a railroad through the Burmese jungle. Ultimately... See full summary »

Director: David L. Cunningham
Stars: CiarĂ¡n McMenamin, Robert Carlyle, Kiefer Sutherland
U-571 (2000)
Action | Drama | Thriller
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 6.5/10 X  

A German submarine is boarded by disguised American submariners trying to capture their Enigma cipher machine.

Director: Jonathan Mostow
Stars: Matthew McConaughey, Bill Paxton, Harvey Keitel
Platoon (1986)
Action | Drama | War
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 8.2/10 X  

A young recruit in Vietnam faces a moral crisis when confronted with the horrors of war and the duality of man.

Director: Oliver Stone
Stars: Keith David, Tom Berenger, Willem Dafoe
Cross of Iron (1977)
Action | Drama | War
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 7.5/10 X  

In 1943, in the Russian front, the decorated leader Rolf Steiner is promoted to Sergeant after another successful mission. Meanwhile the upper-class and arrogant Prussian Captain Hauptmann ... See full summary »

Director: Sam Peckinpah
Stars: James Coburn, Maximilian Schell, James Mason
Blue (2003)
Action | Drama | War
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 5.6/10 X  
Director: Jeong-Kuk Lee
Stars: Hyeon-jun Shin, Eun-Kyung Shin, Yeong-ho Kim
Edit

Cast

Credited cast:
...
Kang Sang-byeong
Jeong-hak Kim ...
Kim Sang-byeong
Ji-a Park ...
Mi-yeong
Hye-jin Yu ...
Cheol-gu
Jin Jeong
Gu-taek Kim
Yun-jae Park
Tae-woo Kim
Yeong-jae Kim
Rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Mi-seong Kim
Sang-ok Park
Hae-jin Yu
Edit

Storyline

At South Korea's border with the North, troops guard the coast. Each bullies those ranking beneath him; tensions are high. PFC Kang and his friend Private Kim are on patrol when drinking youths jeer them. Two nights later, Kang follows orders, opening fire at a person who has infiltrated the border zone. It proves to be a young man, one from the earlier encounter, on a drunken tryst with his girlfriend, Mi-yeong. Kang is commended, yet horrified. Mi-yeong is unhinged. Kim tries to hold onto friendship, duty, and his humanity. While Kang retreats into bizarre behavior and violence, Mi-yeong becomes easy prey to soldiers. Sickness is all. Written by <jhailey@hotmail.com>

Plot Summary | Add Synopsis

Plot Keywords:

youth | friend | south korea | soldier | patrol | See more »

Taglines:

There is a line that cannot be crossed.

Genres:

Action | Drama | War

Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated R for strong violence, a graphic sex scene and language | See all certifications »
Edit

Details

Country:

Language:

Release Date:

22 November 2002 (South Korea)  »

Also Known As:

The Coast Guard  »

Company Credits

Show detailed on  »

Technical Specs

Runtime:

Color:

See  »

Frequently Asked Questions

This FAQ is empty. Add the first question.

User Reviews

 
Rather tiresome film, with some powerful scenes
19 September 2011 | by (United Kingdom) – See all my reviews

Kang (Dong-Gun Jang) is a soldier assigned to patrol the border of the North-South Korea divide. His sole job is to shoot anyone that crosses the border, as they are to be considered North Korean spies. As it holds many rewards, Kang is eager to kill someone. One night on duty in town, he gets into an argument with a gang of youths having drinks, including Mi-Yeong (Ji-A Park). As a means of defying the soldiers who they believe are just living easy off the tax payers' money, Mi-Yeong crosses the border with a young man and the two have sex. Kang spots the man's head and opens fire, killing him, and throws a grenade that blows him apart. Mi-Yeong descends into madness, stalking the army camp and having sex with various soldiers. Kang also goes mad with guilt, and is eventually dismissed from the coast guard, only return with vengeance on his mind.

As good as the premise for this film sounds, I really did find it disappointingly amateurish. The interesting themes lying throughout the film are drowned out by bad plotting, and simply unbelievable incidents. How Kang, a relatively green soldier with no real combat experience, turns into a super-slick Jason Bourne-alike who can deceive a whole patrol overnight is just ridiculous. It's clear that director Ki-Duk Kim is trying to portray the soldiers as useless, but the amount of times they are disarmed by having their weapons simply grabbed out of their hands is unrealistic. And some scenes are just repeated over and over again, notably Kang appearing, ravaged by madness, not realising he has been dismissed, only to be told he is mad by his ex-fellow servicemen and punched and kicked away. It gets tiresome quickly, and appears that the director just ran out of ideas.

It's not to say that some parts of the film aren't effective. The tragic Mi-Yeong, having slept with many of the soldiers believing them to be her dead ex-lover, finds herself pregnant. Her brother, enraged, demands that the soldiers responsible come forward. Mi-Yeong kisses the guilty men one by one on the cheek, gleefully unaware of the gravity of the situation, only for her brother to stare horrified as one after the other step forward. The scene where she crawls into her brother's fish tank, bloody from a forced abortion, is truly brilliant. The water fills up with blood as she sits there, unable to grasp what is happening. It's a powerful scene in a disappointingly poor film.

www.the-wrath-of-blog.blogspot.com


0 of 1 people found this review helpful.  Was this review helpful to you?

Message Boards

Recent Posts
What's the real deal with this movie? heptaparaparshinokh
Why the rocks in the fence? mlepage
Help please! Name of song in movie? ShiroKuro
Coast Guard Theme shooting7sevens
a real millitary movie, thumbs up! aku_momo
Where in S. Korea was this movie shot? corson
Discuss The Coast Guard (2002) on the IMDb message boards »

Contribute to This Page

Create a character page for:
?