"Battle for Incheon: Operation Chromite"

[00:00:00] Speaker A: The odds were 5,000 to 1. One was all they needed. We are the spy fi guys. And this and this is battle for Incheon Operation Chromite. [00:00:15] Speaker B: Welcome to the spy fi guys. So I apologize to the universe for that. [00:00:21] Speaker A: Yes. Wow. [00:00:23] Speaker B: Justice for Dennis M. Is it though? I laughed and then I hated myself for laug. [00:00:32] Speaker A: Foreign. Welcome to spy fi guys, where we cover spy facts, spy fiction and everything in between. I'm Christian. [00:00:42] Speaker B: And I'm Zach. [00:00:43] Speaker A: And today we've got. Is this our second Korean film? [00:00:48] Speaker B: That's correct. [00:00:49] Speaker A: Yeah. We had. We've covered the spy gone north a while back and now we've got battle, the battle for Incheon Operation Chromite. Some places it's just called operation chromite from 2016. [00:01:03] Speaker B: And guess who the bad guys are. [00:01:04] Speaker A: Christian, the North Korean. That was last time I was like, it's not the Americans, so. [00:01:12] Speaker B: Well, it's not the South Korean owned government this time. Remember that? [00:01:17] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, yeah. I forgot that. That was a whole thing. Yep. [00:01:21] Speaker B: So, yes, here on the Spotify guys, we jump back and forth between based on a true story, not based on a true story. This time it is based on a true story. But we do love our foreign films. So today is a Korean movie, mostly Korean actors. One prominent American actor who you may. [00:01:38] Speaker A: Know, and prominent western actor, shall we say? He's not quite American. [00:01:43] Speaker B: Prominent Hollywood actor. We could say that. And this version that we saw was dubbed instead of in subtitles, so that was fun to watch. [00:01:52] Speaker A: Yeah. We do have at least one familiar face here. Koreans. Yes. [00:02:01] Speaker B: Yeah. That would be Ling Li Jung Jai, AKA the Squid Game guy, AKA Soul from the Acolyte. [00:02:08] Speaker A: Exactly. I think those are his big roles in terms of crossover western roles. Yeah. [00:02:16] Speaker B: See what else he's got. I'm not recognizing the other known forms. [00:02:21] Speaker A: Neither am I. [00:02:22] Speaker B: So unless you're really into Korean stuff, I don't think you're going to know them. He's now an international superstar, but this is before that all started back when he was a humble action hero. [00:02:33] Speaker A: A humble South Korean star. [00:02:35] Speaker B: That's correct. [00:02:36] Speaker A: As opposed to the international star. Yeah. Had you seen this movie before? [00:02:40] Speaker B: I had not seen this movie. I didn't know anything about it. I just knew that it was a war movie and I knew that we will give it away now that Liam Neeson is in it. I did not know that Lee was in it, so that was fun. How about you? [00:02:55] Speaker A: I didn't know anything. I knew Liam Neeson was in it because you told me. That's about it. [00:03:00] Speaker B: Yeah. That Was part of the pitch, right? [00:03:03] Speaker A: Well, no, actually, when you pitched it, I was like, all right, let me look at this movie. Oh, south or Korean movie? International. Cool. Oh, under two hours. Even better. And I was already sold by that point. But then you threw in the Liam Neeson to like. Oh, interesting. Interesting. [00:03:16] Speaker B: All right, so shall we get started with this movie? [00:03:19] Speaker A: Let's get our synopses. [00:03:23] Speaker B: Plot synopsis. Okay, so as always, spoilers begin right here for the plot synopses. We begin with our poetry. Synopses. All right, I'm gonna brag a little bit. I feel like the whole movie in three lines. [00:03:40] Speaker A: Okay. [00:03:41] Speaker B: All right, here we go. Communists are bad. Anyway, I start blasting ideals over blood. [00:03:50] Speaker A: All right, all right. [00:03:52] Speaker B: Yeah, I feel like that covers the movie, but if you missed a few things. Next is the limerick for Operation Chromite. There once was a general called Mack who wanted an Incheon attack. When they burned up the chart, the plan had to restart and hit those darn reds in the back. I admit it's not my best work, but I had limited time to work with. And then Here is the IMDb official plot summary. A team of spies is sent into Incheon to gain gain intelligence on North Korean positions ahead of the invasion by UN Forces. [00:04:23] Speaker A: All righty, so let's get into our plot. [00:04:28] Speaker B: That's right. [00:04:29] Speaker A: So we start off with Liam Neeson, who we find out, is playing General MacArthur. [00:04:34] Speaker B: I love it. I love it. I love that Liam Neeson plays him. He's totally phony in this movie, but. [00:04:42] Speaker A: But does it even try to change his accent? [00:04:46] Speaker B: Yeah. What did I know about MacArthur? I knew that he returned to the Philippines and that he was the big general of the Pacific War in World War II, and then he fought in the Korean War as well. But he had a big ego, and he disobeyed orders, and then Truman fired him, and he lived basically the rest of his life in disgrace. [00:05:04] Speaker A: Okay, I knew about the first half of that part. I didn't know that he fought in the Korean War as well, and the Korean Truman fired him and all that sort of stuff. But I have been to Corregidor, which is where I believe either he returned, or he made his speech saying, I will return. And that's in the Philippines. Let's see. [00:05:26] Speaker B: And isn't the picture of him walking onto a beach from the water? Isn't that in the Philippines, too? They do it again in this movie, which I appreciate. I believe that's the iconic image of MacArthur was from Corregidor. [00:05:39] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. But he returned to during the Leyte landing. So. Yeah. So it's not. It wasn't. He didn't return. There was a statue. I think I sent you photos of it or I showed you photos of it. When I went of like, there's a statue him that says, I will return. [00:05:56] Speaker B: Very nice. So the. [00:05:58] Speaker A: That's what. That's what I knew about. About MacArthur. So he's in Tokyo Harbor. There's a hurricane that's hitting the Philippines called Jane. And so they need to decide whether or not to act for Operation Diversion. [00:06:13] Speaker B: Yeah. So something that we learn is that apparently all the hard work of this movie took place before the movie even began. Because it starts with the spies already infiltrated into North Korea, which kind of blows my mind. [00:06:27] Speaker A: I know. We watched. We watched this dubbed. And so some of the subtitles were missing. After the big montage, it tells us all the things that are going on. Did you catch it? There was a One Week Ago subtitle. [00:06:41] Speaker B: No, I didn't see that. [00:06:42] Speaker A: Yeah. So the part where they're on the train, all this stuff happens one week ago. And then once we catch up to MacArthur again, that all happened the week before. [00:06:51] Speaker B: So when they're getting ready to attack Enchion. Yeah, that's right. In the beginning. Yeah. I don't think I realized that. [00:06:56] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:06:56] Speaker B: I thought they were just doing some other war stuff. [00:06:59] Speaker A: No, no. So that's. Yeah, a little montage. It's tells us on June 25, 1950, with the Soviet Union support, North Korea invades the South. On June 27, Truman deported the U.S. army. And aside MacArthur as commander in chief of the UN Command, Korea south of the Nakdong river falls within a month. In order to turn the tide of war, MacArthur orders a covert operation. [00:07:25] Speaker B: That's right. [00:07:25] Speaker A: And so we see the start of the operation one week ago. I like the music throughout this whole film. It's pretty good. Nice, intense. [00:07:33] Speaker B: I should go back and listen to it again. [00:07:35] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. And so we are on a train and there's these two North Korean soldiers who are meeting. One's reading a book. They both seemingly have very different outlooks on life. And so, yeah, and I said in my notes, it's what's his name? From the acolytes. So his character's name is Jang Hak Soo. And he says, I know who you are, Park Nam Chul. And then kills him. And the rest of his team kills the rest of the men on the train. [00:08:06] Speaker B: It's a sneak attack. And I appreciate they keep calling him park throughout the movie. Captain Park. And that was the guy's name from the Spy Gone North. You didn't have to remember your name. [00:08:15] Speaker A: Well, I called it. Yeah, I called him Fake Park. [00:08:18] Speaker B: There you go. [00:08:19] Speaker A: So they go undercover as the men who they've just killed to Inchea. [00:08:22] Speaker B: Right. And we get some more Liam Beeson. And I must say he's phoning in the acting. I know I mentioned that before, but it's, it's really true. Like, he comes off right in those Bollywood movies, or in this case, Korean movies, where they have the white actors and they perform very still to dialogue. Even Liam Neeson can't escape it. So he says Incheon is extremely well defended. And there's only one way in on the water. [00:08:50] Speaker A: Yeah. So we see that Jang Haku and his men have infiltrated Incheon. They're in a, like, security briefing about defending from the sea. Jang, AKA Fake Park Nam Chul is asking about the naval mines. Apparently they're lining the whole waterway. And so I, I, I guess what I've gathered is that they're like supposed to be in. They're taking the place of inspectors. [00:09:13] Speaker B: Yeah. Which is a great cover and makes you wonder how they were able to pull that off. We don't see it in the movie. How were they able to do that? But I like in this part that there's threat and then, oh, they got it covered. Like, for example, they check for bugs. Someone asked them to do like a loyalty test. Would you kill your own father if he wasn't communist enough? Oh, yes, of course I would. Somebody asked them, what's your unit password? But they have it ready. No problem. [00:09:40] Speaker A: Yep, they're very well prepared. [00:09:44] Speaker B: The first of two movies that this reminded me of. [00:09:48] Speaker A: All right here. [00:09:50] Speaker B: Any, any guesses on what the first one is? A team of heroes that run around a foreign country shooting everybody in sight. [00:10:00] Speaker A: Is it? [00:10:01] Speaker B: They always get away with that. [00:10:02] Speaker A: The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare. [00:10:05] Speaker B: Yes, that's right. I was actually about to say the Dirty Tricks Department, but you remembered the title better than I did. [00:10:09] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, I can see that. That MO Is very not campy, but it's more, it's more campy than this. [00:10:17] Speaker B: Oh yeah, it's extremely campy. [00:10:20] Speaker A: And I love that that movie's campy. That's what that tone for. That is. This is more serious tone, but it is. There is a bit of that I can say. I'll say that. All right. I'm curious to find out when you realize what the second movie this reminds you of and when we get to that point. [00:10:34] Speaker B: Okay, I will tell you. [00:10:35] Speaker A: All right. That whole story about someone killing his own sister for being a Christian. So Comrade Lim is the person in charge of Incheon and he's the big bad of the film. Really? [00:10:49] Speaker B: Yeah. He's the Inspector Javert, if you will. [00:10:53] Speaker A: I wouldn't necessarily call him the Javert because Javert is like. [00:10:56] Speaker B: Is sympathetic. [00:10:58] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. He is not. Lim is a full on bad guy. Like we hear a report that like they're sending a report to MacArthur and it's like, yeah, no, this whole thing is under Lim's command. Doesn't take orders from Pyongyang. [00:11:12] Speaker B: So the. Yeah, the beginning I really like because it seems like everything is under control. They got the password. They send this woman down who knows what Mr. Park actually looks like. That's handled too. They pass all the tests and there's a very clear goal. Get the chart of the minds. [00:11:30] Speaker A: Exactly. So they conduct inspections and they're trying to sort of. Yeah, trying to find that map of the mine. So they're using its inspections as cover for finding it. And MacArthur has his forces start to send false reports about naval invasions elsewhere in different areas, which this reminded me. What did this remind me of? [00:11:48] Speaker B: Wait, it was like Midway or something. [00:11:51] Speaker A: The second. The Midway that was more accurate. Surprisingly. [00:11:56] Speaker B: That's right. [00:11:57] Speaker A: Okay. [00:11:58] Speaker B: Yeah. There's a couple of parts when he threatens. I keep calling him park because that's how I know him with the. With the gun. And then he looks and they have the scar. Oh my God, they know about the scar. These guys have it all under control. Also the part where they ask about the mine chart yet again and Limous says, you know, Mr. Park, you keep asking about the mines. It's kind of suspicious. And I'm not a super spy, but my comeback the to that would be, well, you keep hiding the mines and that's kind of suspicious. So of course I'm going to keep asking about it. [00:12:29] Speaker A: And that same thing with Lim and fake Parker having a drink. They're talking about the evasion, where will MacArthur land? And then I like this. One of my favorite tropes in movies is when you have two people meeting simultaneously talking about the same thing. So you have the UN strategy meeting in Tokyo and simultaneously the meeting in Pyongyang talking about where is he going to go? They did this to pretty good. Effective Mission Impossible. The final reckoning where you have them on the submarine, but then also the rest of the team on the plane all talking about the same thing. And intercutting it to make it look like it's all one big conversation, but it's happening two different places at simultaneously. It's a fun trope. And it's a way to get information across quickly without having to have two separate scenes with the same information. Which I know you hate. [00:13:19] Speaker B: It's true. That does drive me crazy. Even so, with this part, it's like, okay, we get it. The odds of success at Incheon are very long and. But I do like when they cycle analyze MacArthur a little bit. They're like, he wants just a blaze of glory. Christian. Also, around this part, I have a note. There's some weird dialogue when they are hanging out in their room that they check it for hugs and they talk to each other as if they weren't spies. There's a throwaway line where someone says headquarters wants us to recruit Lim. Do you remember this? [00:13:48] Speaker A: I don't remember this. Interesting. [00:13:51] Speaker B: That's why it was crazy. Because they throw it out there and then they never do anything with it. [00:13:55] Speaker A: Maybe. Yeah, I'd have to rewatch that part, but I don't remember that. Oh, interesting. Okay. [00:14:00] Speaker B: I think it was like, if you can't get the mine chart, this is another plan. But then they have a plan to get the mine chart. It falls by the wayside. But I wondered if that was some kind of script error or whatever. So MacArthur gets chewed out. He tells a story about meeting this 16 year old fanatic child soldier South Korean who made MacArthur promise to save his country. So that's why he really wants to do this. [00:14:26] Speaker A: The soldier he meets was that Jang Hak Su? [00:14:29] Speaker B: I don't think so. [00:14:30] Speaker A: Okay. In my mind that was. But I wasn't like. [00:14:34] Speaker B: I guess it's possible if it was in World War II, but I think it's the same war. I think still the Korean War. [00:14:42] Speaker A: All right. Yeah, yeah. But I like that young soldier. Why he's still there. And he said no one gave us orders not to orders to leave. And they asked him, do you need anything? Give me a gun and give me bullets. [00:14:53] Speaker B: And MacArthur's like, now that's a man. [00:14:57] Speaker A: That was great. [00:14:58] Speaker B: So we have this thing with the barber I also wanted to mention. And so you know this stuff. So when Lim gives him the fancy watch and then he does like the two arms up in the air. Is that the Bonsai salute from Japan or is it something else? Any ideas? [00:15:14] Speaker A: I think it's something else. [00:15:15] Speaker B: But it sure looks similar. Do you remember talking about that? Tora. Tora. Tora. [00:15:19] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. No, that's that's different. I, I, I mean, it may be inspired by that, but I don't think, at least, especially this time, the Koreans don't have great relationships with the Japanese. I don't think they would be imitating their specific salute. [00:15:34] Speaker B: I just thought it was interesting. Interesting little detail. So anyway, we learned that Barber is actually a spy. He's working with the good guys. [00:15:43] Speaker A: Yep. Now the team has until September 10th to find the mine chart. And the last places that they have to check are the offices. And then we get a scene with fake park, who's up late, and one of the other members of the team wants to visit his children because. And I think this is where I first get the idea that everything south of that river, you know, was taken over. That means that most of the team is from this area, or at least a few members from this area. So they know the area. But also, isn't that really risky if anyone else recognizes them? [00:16:17] Speaker B: It doesn't make sense for spies. You, you would really think so. That's true. [00:16:22] Speaker A: Well, the, I guess the only ones we see that actually have family are Fake Park, AKA Jung, and then this guy. I don't know if anyone, everyone else is from this area, but at least those two are from this area. [00:16:34] Speaker B: Yeah, that's. Well, you know what else is crazy, Christian, since you brought it up, is that Fake park carries a picture of his real life parents with him. [00:16:42] Speaker A: Oh, that is. [00:16:43] Speaker B: Which no spy would ever do that. [00:16:45] Speaker A: No, no. [00:16:46] Speaker B: So that was interesting. So I like the part where the old guy. I don't, I don't know the old guy's name. [00:16:51] Speaker A: I don't remember his name either. [00:16:51] Speaker B: He's chewing out the guards. He's making them salute over and over again. [00:16:55] Speaker A: Well, you skipped over a part, so my favorite part. [00:16:58] Speaker B: Your favorite part? [00:17:00] Speaker A: Not my favorite part of any mission. It's what they explain the plan. [00:17:05] Speaker B: Okay, very good. [00:17:07] Speaker A: So the plan is they need to infiltrate during the day. It's like mission impossible. When they're telling how they're gonna do the heist, they show a little montage of how that's gonna happen. They need to distract the guards. They're gonna climb up to Lim's office. Another team member is in charge of extraction with secured vehicles. And then Fake park occupy limb. And then, of course, even more make it even more like heisty synchronized watches. [00:17:30] Speaker B: I don't know why they needed to do that, but it was pretty funny. This movie's got it all. [00:17:37] Speaker A: So, yeah, the older guy is distracting the guards with proper saluting and this wouldn't work in all places. But you know where this does work In a totalitarian government, when everyone fears their superiors. [00:17:49] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it might work in a liberal democracy as well, but I don't know who's decided they love their distractions. [00:17:57] Speaker A: The plan is coming together, and one of the actual soldiers leaves lunch with Rio Lim and Fake Park. [00:18:04] Speaker B: And I also found this very funny. [00:18:06] Speaker A: He surprises the team. [00:18:09] Speaker B: In some ways, Fake park is the greatest spy ever because he's done all his homework. And dude points a gun right at his eye, and he doesn't even flinch. But then when Comrade Roo gets up, park is like, hey, comrade Roof, why don't you just stay a little longer? [00:18:24] Speaker A: Okay. See, I feel like part of that may be the translation, though. Yeah. Like, sometimes when there's awkward dialogue like that, I give the film the benefit of the doubt that it's just awkward translation. [00:18:37] Speaker B: That's very generous of you. Yeah. Also, the dubbed delivery is very funny, so I think that was part of it too, but. [00:18:46] Speaker A: Yeah. So Ryu, you know, surprises the two team members who are at the office, and they get him at gunpoint and get him to open the safe, which it's lucky, because I don't think they knew the combination of the safe. And I know a little bit about safe cracking, mostly from the spy museum. It's hard to do if you don't know what the combination is. It's really hard to do even if. [00:19:07] Speaker B: You have a safe cracker on the team. [00:19:08] Speaker A: Even then, it's a hard business. [00:19:11] Speaker B: This isn't their greatest plan I've ever seen in the world. It's basically get into the. The office and, like, look around and hope you find it. [00:19:20] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. There's a gunfight. [00:19:24] Speaker B: Yeah. There's a good shooter. [00:19:26] Speaker A: They have the plans in their hands and see them. He. He calls for more guards to come in, and there's a big gunfight. He throws the light into the safe, and the charge gets lit on fire. I was like, oh, God, this is. [00:19:39] Speaker B: It was great. Yeah. [00:19:42] Speaker A: Like, yeah. The stiff cracker is trying to get out the window, and he's shot and falls out the window, and the plans have all burned up. The other guy jumps out and lands safely. [00:19:55] Speaker B: Yeah. And they get away. But what are you going to do now? You lost the chart, Your cover's blown. What are you going to do? What's the big plan now, Mr. Big? [00:20:03] Speaker A: And I, like, looked at, I realized, wait a minute. The big heist is only halfway through the movie. What else is going to happen. [00:20:09] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. We have to pivot and figure it out. The Ministry of Legitimately Warfare would never be in a situation like this. [00:20:17] Speaker A: So Lim is still lunch, gets a call, hears that the inspection team is all South Korean spies. And Lim laughs and then tells Fake Park a story about someone who was in the Soviet Union who was ordered to kill his bourgeois father. But he couldn't do it and his friend did it instead. And the guy went crazy and killed all his comrades and defected to the South. [00:20:40] Speaker B: And we found later. [00:20:42] Speaker A: No, no, not later. We find out right now and it's like. Do you remember the name of that? So you know that soldier? Of course. Everyone knows it's Jang Hakusu, which is his real name. [00:20:52] Speaker B: And that's you. Jakku is. So I was distracted during this story because the extras behind him, which is a group of soldiers, all do the same like motion with their arms holding their mugs of beer. Yeah, I found that very true. [00:21:04] Speaker A: I didn't notice that. That's funny. But yeah. So they have a Mexican standoff. Why are you here? Jang Hak Su. And then there's a big gunfight. [00:21:12] Speaker B: Christian. This is where that. Anyways, I started blasting comes from. And the haiku. [00:21:16] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:21:16] Speaker B: Because they do that a lot. [00:21:17] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. So they try to get away and the team is getting killed off. Picked off one by one. [00:21:25] Speaker B: That's right. One of them pulls a waitress as a human shield. She immediately gets killed. There's just so much shooting. There's just so much violence. [00:21:32] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:21:32] Speaker B: And this is the first time I noticed post production gun effects. Have you noticed this? So this is this thing in kind of cheaper movies, let's just say it, where you can make a gun barrel flash. [00:21:46] Speaker A: Oh yeah. [00:21:47] Speaker B: You can do that normally or you can do a post production and you can very clearly see the difference. [00:21:52] Speaker A: Yeah. Sometimes John Wick films actually use CGI muzzle flash as well. And I don't want to get in too far into the rust controversy with Alec Bald. [00:22:02] Speaker B: Oh geez. [00:22:03] Speaker A: But I will say using actual guns with blanks because it is safer. [00:22:09] Speaker B: Safer. Yeah. [00:22:10] Speaker A: I mean in terms of film. [00:22:11] Speaker B: I'm sure the John Wick movies though have Hollywood money. They can make it. [00:22:14] Speaker A: This is also true. This is very true. Yes. Although I will say, you know, the guys, the guys on Corridor Crew did make a point that. Yeah. That they can tell that it's post production. Muzzle flash. Yeah. [00:22:27] Speaker B: Limited knowledge. I could see it here. [00:22:29] Speaker A: I wasn't really paying attention to that necessarily. So I didn't notice it. But if I watched for it. I probably would notice it after the remains of the team gets away. Lim comes into his office and this is like Darth Vader style kill all the guards kind of thing for the last time. [00:22:50] Speaker B: Yep, totally. Absolutely. I liked it though. [00:22:53] Speaker A: Yeah. And then he brings in these two brothers who had American weapon. And they said that we. They were given to us by a guy with big eyes and a nice watch. [00:23:02] Speaker B: I wonder. Yep. So the barber gets fingered. And this was a little bit half baked too. So like these two brothers had American. [00:23:10] Speaker A: Daughters I wasn't sure about. [00:23:12] Speaker B: Where did that even come from? [00:23:13] Speaker A: I don't know. I didn't really figure that. So the guillotine that's pinked up by the barber and it's like brother and sister, pair of, you know, spies. Like the sister who's really hardcore. [00:23:28] Speaker B: Yeah, she's great. I called them partisans. My wife was like, what is a partisan? I'm not sure actually. [00:23:35] Speaker A: That seems accurate. Yeah. Isn't the rendezvous at the wherever place? And he's like, no, let's go to Domungdang instead. [00:23:45] Speaker B: Yeah, the job's not finished. They can't run yet. [00:23:48] Speaker A: So MacArthur receives word that Truman is considering his plan, but he doesn't want the Chinese to join the fight. And also that once they reach a certain line on the map, the war has to end. [00:24:01] Speaker B: Interesting. I thought that line was the 38th parallel, but I guess not. [00:24:05] Speaker A: I assume that it was. [00:24:07] Speaker B: Well, the 38th parallel is in the middle of the country. Why would they stop when they're only halfway to victory? [00:24:13] Speaker A: How much do you know about the Korean War? I don't know. A lot. [00:24:15] Speaker B: A little bit. A very little. Not a ton. [00:24:18] Speaker A: I mean, I know what I've seen from this movie. And then there was that fighter pilot movie with Glenn Powell and what's his face Kang, who's Persona non grata now. It was called. No, Was it defiant? Something like that? [00:24:34] Speaker B: Devotion. It's called Devotion. [00:24:38] Speaker A: Daniel Craig movie. Yeah, that's right. [00:24:40] Speaker B: Also, well, part of. [00:24:44] Speaker A: Devotion was like, which is set during the Korean War, during America's forgotten war. And hey, guess what? We apparently have not learned enough because we forgot it too. [00:24:51] Speaker B: Never forget. So anyway, MacArthur also tells the story about him recruiting. [00:24:56] Speaker A: Okay, see this guy? I conflated the two. Zhang. [00:25:00] Speaker B: We'll just call him Jung Haksu. [00:25:02] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. In my mind, I conflated the two stories. That's why I was like, is this. No, this is. So that was not him. Because of course, if he was 16, he would have been still in the North Korean arc later in life. Yeah, yeah, that too, but yeah. So we also get MacArthur's motives questioned. Are you trying to run for president? Did he run for. For president previously? [00:25:24] Speaker B: Apparently he did, if I take the movie at face value. [00:25:27] Speaker A: Yeah. All right. Presidential run. Well, never actually present. He was prominent in American history. Did MacArthur run for president? He won. To 1952. He tried to run and spent the rest of his life as an elder statesman for conservative and nationalist. Wait a minute, 50. When does this movie take place? [00:25:49] Speaker B: I think this takes place in 1951. [00:25:51] Speaker A: 50. [00:25:52] Speaker B: Maybe they got that wrong. [00:25:53] Speaker A: Oh, no, wait. 1950. Yeah, yeah. [00:25:56] Speaker B: I feel like they say that at the beginning. They say it takes place in 1951. [00:26:00] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:26:02] Speaker B: That's what they call an anachronism. [00:26:04] Speaker A: Yeah. Hold on. Let's see. This was after much. [00:26:09] Speaker B: Well, it was before he ran for president. [00:26:11] Speaker A: Before he ran for president. Wait, actually. Yeah, yeah. [00:26:15] Speaker B: Hey, well, then it still kind of works, that one dialogue. [00:26:19] Speaker A: Unless it's like a translation issue again. [00:26:22] Speaker B: You know, or something like that. [00:26:24] Speaker A: It's the American stocking, so they didn't necessarily have. And then we see the spy brings the team, the remains of the team, to a house where his niece is there. Who I don't actually know her name. [00:26:37] Speaker B: Her name is Han Jae soon, according to IMDb. And I love the reveal that she's loyal to North Korea. [00:26:44] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:26:45] Speaker B: Again, does it make sense? Because this takes place in South Korea. [00:26:49] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. Well, they. And they say that, like, all of it fell within a month, so they've, like, indoctrinated them pretty quick. [00:26:56] Speaker B: Maybe she was always loyal to North Korea and was just, like, hiding out the whole time. [00:27:01] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, no, no, but this is. This is further into the North, I think. I don't know. [00:27:07] Speaker B: Here we go. Where. Where is Incheon? Incheon is right outside of Seoul. It's literally to the west of Seoul. [00:27:14] Speaker A: Wow. Okay. [00:27:15] Speaker B: So it's not exactly deep in North Korean territory. It did make for some good drama, though. Yeah, I'll give you that. Yeah. [00:27:24] Speaker A: So shows them that there's a hidden room that was used during World War II against the Japanese. And the spy goes to contact Ko Inchion, who are the partisans, basically. [00:27:35] Speaker B: Yeah. This was a good reveal of Lin hiding in the shadows. Or, sorry, Lim and not Lin. [00:27:40] Speaker A: Lim. Yep. Yep. So Zhang and the niece whose name you said was Hannah Han Solo. [00:27:49] Speaker B: There's a funny part where he tries to convince her not to be a communist. [00:27:53] Speaker A: Yeah. And he tells her, well, the whole story that we've heard already, basically. And, yeah, I Was wondering if it was going to be now. Now I'll tell you my side of the story. It's basically the same story. [00:28:04] Speaker B: Yeah, that was a little bit annoying, but okay. You get to hear from his perspective, which is. Yeah, nice. [00:28:10] Speaker A: So the North Korean soldiers are searching the house, and the. The niece screams, and one soldier thinks he hears something right in front of the hiding place. [00:28:18] Speaker B: Yeah. And there's a good moral dilemma here. The niece wants to save her uncle. The heroes should save him because he really helped them out, but they can't. I do find it funny. They don't just start blasting because they don't seem to have a problem taking on lots of enemy soldiers most of the time. But they don't do it here. [00:28:36] Speaker A: Well, I think they've just gotten a bunch of the other members of their team killed, so maybe they need a little bit of breather first before they do that again. [00:28:44] Speaker B: Yeah, maybe they're low on ammunition. So then there's a good question. Is, do they trust the niece not to betray them? You know what I mean? [00:28:52] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. So then her uncle is tied to a post and he's got. Has a sign around his neck that says, I am a Yankee puppet. Puppet. I deserve full punishment. [00:29:02] Speaker B: That's right. [00:29:02] Speaker A: So Jiang eventually relents and says, open the tunnel. And they sent her through the tunnel to go save her uncle, but he's shot before she can get there. And then she's taken and punched in the face. [00:29:14] Speaker B: Yeah, there's a little more violence than I would have preferred, just in general. [00:29:19] Speaker A: Yeah. So the. The team goes to meet the KLO Incheon and the operation is going through. So they need to find another way to locate the mines. So they have to kidnap Ryujiang Chu. Who's the. You know, the guy who left the lunch earlier and caught them. [00:29:35] Speaker B: I was confused about this. I thought they were gonna give kidnap limb because limb they know for sure where the minds are. But how are you supposed to do that? I guess kidnapping the other dude makes more sense because they know he's in the hospital. [00:29:48] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. [00:29:50] Speaker B: So that all checks out. There's also some drama where they argue about what to do now and game over, man. Game over. You know, stuff like that. [00:29:58] Speaker A: Yep. Yep. But yeah, apparently Ryujiang Chu is the person who actually put the mines out there. So now they've got a plan. And now this expanded team is waiting to act. They're waiting to put their plan into place. Jiang sees his mother, but chickens out and actually gonna say hi to her. [00:30:14] Speaker B: Chickens out. He's loyal to the mission. [00:30:18] Speaker A: And then the other. The older guy sees his family, meets his babies, and like, like, they put. Bring the baby into the, like the truck and like, hand him around. They all get to say, meet the baby. This is a real. What they're fighting for a moment. And that's when I knew that that guy was gonna die. [00:30:35] Speaker B: Just break all the rules. Who cares? Just break them all. Their plan is so dumb. You thought the break into the office plan was dumb? This is even dumber somehow. I mean, I do appreciate that they have an ins. A woman on the inside. [00:30:51] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:30:53] Speaker B: Which is nice. I didn't mind her switching sides so easily because they did build it up to it. [00:30:58] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:30:58] Speaker B: So it checks out. [00:30:59] Speaker A: Yeah. So Han is a nurse at the hospital. So she happens to be the one who's watching Ryu Jung Chu. And Lim is with her. The team is undercover surgeons, which reminded me of Star Trek 4, the original. [00:31:13] Speaker B: Yeah, me too. That was great. [00:31:16] Speaker A: But then there's a big shootout and they grab you. There's a car chase, like Indiana Jones style, like Raiders of the Lost Stark. Like, you know, they're all trying to get on or off that truck. [00:31:27] Speaker B: Yeah. Someone gets dragged behind the truck at one point. There's terrible CGI explosions, which I adore. [00:31:33] Speaker A: Yeah. But then, you know, some people get captured. Other people are holding off, you know, the. The. So other soldiers. And then we see our brother and sister pair, and they're all excited because they made it through. But then the sister dies. [00:31:48] Speaker B: Yeah. And this is where it started to remind me of the other movie. But I will wait until it became even clearer. So. [00:31:56] Speaker A: Okay, I'm waiting. Well, the important thing though, that is, throughout all this, Lim is still alive. They didn't kill him. [00:32:03] Speaker B: Oh, they were trying to kill him. [00:32:04] Speaker A: I know. But throughout the action, I was like, wait, was that Lim? So I thought that he was dead, but no, like, they have a shot of him, like, getting up from the rubble. Oh, he's still alive. Then also, they go and bury the sister. [00:32:15] Speaker B: Yeah. They take the time to have a funeral. Lim gets almost blown up a couple of times, but he survived. [00:32:20] Speaker A: It's like Michael Myers. He just keeps on going. [00:32:24] Speaker B: I don't know. I wouldn't go that far. [00:32:25] Speaker A: But later on we'll talk about. [00:32:28] Speaker B: Yeah, okay. [00:32:29] Speaker A: So they rig up the soldier, but before he gets taken away, they said, he says, there's something else on Widow, which is the island where some of the invasion is going through. And yes, that I. I caught that as Skyhook as well. [00:32:42] Speaker B: So unfortunately, Christian, this was. This was the climax of the movie to me. [00:32:47] Speaker A: Okay. [00:32:47] Speaker B: Which is unfortunate because it's not the climax of the real movie. At this point, I feel like the movie's going on too long. To me, if the movie had ended here, it would have been, like, perfect. [00:32:58] Speaker A: If you ended here and just had the plan succeeded, blah, blah, blah. Kind of. [00:33:02] Speaker B: Yeah. They did the plan. They got the mines, they did the invasion. That's it. [00:33:07] Speaker A: Yes. That's why you have that hook. But a boat. [00:33:11] Speaker B: It's a hook to bring you into for the rest of the movie. [00:33:13] Speaker A: Yeah, that. There's something else on Woe. [00:33:16] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:33:17] Speaker A: Anyway, so this is where we go catch up to the beginning of the movie where MacArthur is overlooking his troops and he says, send message to the team. Light the lighthouse on September 15, zero hundred hours. [00:33:29] Speaker B: Seems like a pretty easy objective. You would think. [00:33:33] Speaker A: So now they've got their new mission. There should be about 20 men guarding it. And Zhang wants to check out what the. What Ryu was talking about. And then we also see two captured team members who are executed in the town square. [00:33:46] Speaker B: Yeah. So they really turn up the emotion for this part. But we barely even know these people, so it really doesn't work for me. [00:33:52] Speaker A: It worked on me. [00:33:54] Speaker B: Okay. That's fair. It just goes on and on and on. [00:33:56] Speaker A: Yeah. All right, so the battleships prepare to fire. Zhang leaves the rest of the team with a couple of men to go to Woe Mido. And we find the niece, volunteered to help the team who's gonna, you know, go. So they infiltrate the island, and we had to keep getting. Not flashbacks. Cuts to MacArthur checking his watch. So they get to the lighthouse. [00:34:20] Speaker B: The part in the lighthouse was really good, really low level. Like them fighting one guy, but he's above them. How are they supposed to do this? Yeah, that was interesting stuff. [00:34:28] Speaker A: And also, you can't use grenades or anything because then you might damage the lighthouse. [00:34:32] Speaker B: Yep. Good point. [00:34:33] Speaker A: Good point. [00:34:34] Speaker B: So what are they gonna do? [00:34:35] Speaker A: They have. They have the shootout. They finally kill the guy, and then they turn on the light. [00:34:39] Speaker B: That's right. So the invasion's on. [00:34:41] Speaker A: And then this is where we get Commander Lim, who sees it's going on. He's like, oh, let the games begin. [00:34:48] Speaker B: Yeah, some kind of speech about that. [00:34:50] Speaker A: Yeah. Ready for the Americans. Yeah. Let's show the Yankees what, you know, what we're made of. [00:34:56] Speaker B: That's right. My wife was also very amused by this part where MacArthur says, prepare to fire. And then people go, prepare to fire. [00:35:02] Speaker A: Prepare to fire. Prepare to fire. [00:35:03] Speaker B: Prepare to fire. Everything he says, they repeat, like, six or seven times. [00:35:07] Speaker A: It's very, you know, what's his name? Colonel Sanders from Spaceball Situation. [00:35:14] Speaker B: Oh, you mean Dark Helmet or whatever. The other guy. [00:35:17] Speaker A: Dark Helmet. Dark Helmet gives orders to Colonel Sanders and is. [00:35:21] Speaker B: And they just keep going. [00:35:22] Speaker A: Prepare to fire. It's exactly that kind of thing. Yeah. Anyway, so Zhang and his team find Lim's men planting TNT on the beaches, and they need to figure out how to alert MacArthur and get rid of the TNT. And they are in a tank. [00:35:36] Speaker B: Yeah, that's right. Tank infiltration. They're gonna fight the bad guy. That was great. [00:35:41] Speaker A: They head to the beach and, like, they slow down, just. But then they aim the tank. Artillery, or the tank. What do you call the cannon. Yeah, cannon. At the artillery on the beach. Blow it up and then blow. Big explosions. Blows up the TNT there as well. And MacArthur sees this, and I was like, we still need to wait for the signal, though. [00:36:04] Speaker B: Yeah, wait for the flare. [00:36:05] Speaker A: You see, you know, Lim looking out on the scope of something. So I thought he was in the artillery when, you know, they get exploded. But nope, he's still alive. He gets in a different tank. And this is where we have our tank battle. [00:36:18] Speaker B: That's right. [00:36:19] Speaker A: And also, the rest of Zhang's team is slowly getting killed off. [00:36:23] Speaker B: Okay, Christian, this is a. All right, this is where I figured out the other movie that this reminded me. [00:36:27] Speaker A: Is it Saving Private Ride? [00:36:29] Speaker B: No, it's a spy movie with a beloved science fiction franchise where they go on a very important mission and everyone slowly dies until eventually everyone dies. [00:36:40] Speaker A: I have no idea. [00:36:42] Speaker B: Rogue One. [00:36:43] Speaker A: Rogue One. I can see that. I can definitely see that. So would that make Han our. Well, she doesn't die. [00:36:56] Speaker B: Yeah, I would say so now she. [00:36:57] Speaker A: Doesn'T have enough of a role, like. Because Rogue One is really her movie, actually. Yeah. [00:37:03] Speaker B: Okay, so I'm sorry, who was the question? [00:37:05] Speaker A: I said, does that make Han our. [00:37:08] Speaker B: No, Han. Han is definitely. [00:37:12] Speaker A: Han is like, the pilot guy. [00:37:15] Speaker B: Well, he dies. Everyone dies in Rogue One, everyone gets away. [00:37:18] Speaker A: Yeah, I know. I know. [00:37:19] Speaker B: It's not perfect. [00:37:20] Speaker A: Yeah. Anyways. Yeah. So they're all getting killed off. John's the only one left, and he fires the flare because everyone else is dead on the beach. And this is where again, you know, in his best Liam Neeson voice, initiate Operation Chromite. [00:37:39] Speaker B: It's not what they were doing before. [00:37:40] Speaker A: Right. But also, I'm like, if he. If they could get him to say this line, how could they not get him to say, you've sucked my battleship re Battleship. [00:37:53] Speaker B: I mean, that was obviously a choice. [00:37:55] Speaker A: It was a poor choice. That's the only reason you have a movie called Battleship starring Liam Neeson, is to have him say, you've sunk my battleship. [00:38:04] Speaker B: It's because we live in the dark timeline. [00:38:06] Speaker A: That's why. After he's fired the flare, Jean gets shot twice in the chest by Lim. [00:38:13] Speaker B: Terrible. There's a good part where they're, like, stalking each other around the tank, where they got their guns. [00:38:19] Speaker A: Yeah. But then Lim just. Or Lim just shoots Jong a lot. [00:38:24] Speaker B: That's right. That's right. [00:38:25] Speaker A: And I'm like, oh, wow. How is he still conscious, let alone alive? [00:38:30] Speaker B: No, it's a movie. [00:38:31] Speaker A: Yeah. And then. But he shoot. Finally shoots Lim in the head. And then Zhang has this, you know, remembers all the members of his team who died. [00:38:41] Speaker B: Andy dreams of himself in some kind of basket with Han. Oh. [00:38:47] Speaker A: I think it was like imagining, like, if they were, like, escaping, basically, if they had. If instead of going along with the team, they just run away together. [00:38:58] Speaker B: Oh, so sad. [00:38:59] Speaker A: But this is when we get the actual invasion. The effects held up here. [00:39:04] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:39:06] Speaker A: The bombers, the fighters, the battleships. I'm sure CJ Was on this episode. He would tell us exactly what those planes were and how badly they looked and how they were the wrong types of planes. [00:39:17] Speaker B: But there'll be a good test for him is Korean War stuff. [00:39:21] Speaker A: A lot of stuff towards the end of the World War II was ended up just being used in Korean War, so. [00:39:28] Speaker B: So you have to use the ladders. They talk about using ladders to get up cliffs. I like the shots of the soldiers from behind, so you can't tell that they're Korean actors. That was funny. [00:39:38] Speaker A: Yeah. He's somehow still alive, and he's thinking. He has a voiceover, thinking about his mother and how he was too cowardly to go and say hi because he thought he would never leave if he did. [00:39:51] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:39:51] Speaker A: And then Han and the rest of the KLL go on the beach. This is where Han finds Zhang. And he's dead. [00:39:59] Speaker B: That's sad. She's so Sad. And then MacArthur salutes him. And they all salute him. [00:40:02] Speaker A: Yeah. And then we have victory. The older guy's family with the baby is looking for him, and Zhang's mother is with her, and she hallucinates that she sees Zhang. [00:40:14] Speaker B: Yeah. I actually like this part. I really liked it. I thought it was cute. [00:40:19] Speaker A: And then we get interviews with all the men telling why they volunteered. [00:40:23] Speaker B: They put the country first. There's also something I wanted to mention very briefly behind the moment. Is the guy wearing the traditional Korean hat which has the wide brim. [00:40:33] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:40:34] Speaker B: Has like a mesh. [00:40:36] Speaker A: Okay. [00:40:37] Speaker B: Did you ever watch this show called the Kingdom? [00:40:40] Speaker A: I've heard about it, but. And I remember people talking about the hats, but I never did watch it. [00:40:44] Speaker B: That was me. The hats really bugged me because they have all these different kinds of hats and they're different colors and they're different styles. I was trying to figure out what they mean, like what the different colors mean. It doesn't mean anything. None of them have a meaning. It's just the traditional side. [00:40:59] Speaker A: Cool. Yeah. [00:41:00] Speaker B: Yeah. My wife asked me, is he Jewish? Because it's similar to a Hasidic. [00:41:04] Speaker A: Hasidic. Yeah. [00:41:05] Speaker B: And I said, no, he's not. Yeah. So that was interesting. So then. Yeah, so they get their interviews and then we see the photo of the real guys at the end. [00:41:14] Speaker A: And it's dedicated to the 15 members who died during Operation X Ray. Our movie ends. [00:41:22] Speaker B: That's right. Okay, that's the movie. So shall we jump into Spy Fact versus Fiction? Spy Fact versus Spy fiction. [00:41:35] Speaker A: Sure, let's do it. I've got one thing on this, and this is about what we called it. Skyhook. And it is also known as the Fulton Surface to Air Recovery System, otherwise known as stars. And this is from Wikipedia. So it was a system used by the CIA and the the U.S. air Force and the U.S. navy for retrieving individuals on the ground using aircraft such as as the B or MC1 Combat Talent and the B17 Flying Fortress. It involves an overall type harness and a self inflating balloon with an attached lift line. The plane engages the line with its V shaped yoke and the person is reeled on board. Now there are two prominent movies where we've seen this used. One is the very end of Thunderball and the other is of course the Dark Knight. [00:42:26] Speaker B: Of course, everyone knows that. I forgot about Thunderball. [00:42:30] Speaker A: Yeah. Apparently, looking at Wikipedia, it's also used in the movie the Green Berets, the John Wayne movie, and in a couple video games. It can be used in. It's used in IG I2, covert strike, metal Skier Solid, Peace Walker and Phantom Pain, as well as pubg battlegrounds, Call of Duty, Modern Warfare and its sequel, Call of Duty, Modern Warfare 3. So it's, it's, it's. Yeah, it's. It's in. Around. In popular culture. But yeah, I did realize what was going on that scene. Oh, are they gonna draw and quarter him? And then I saw the play. Oh, this is Skyhook. That's cool. [00:43:04] Speaker B: Yeah, it was a nice reveal, and it means he didn't have to torture him to get that info. [00:43:08] Speaker A: Yeah, I definitely thought it was gonna be a torture thing. All right, so what do you got? [00:43:13] Speaker B: Okay, so I have quite a bit, if you'll indulge me. So the beginning, I noticed a mistake. So here's the animated opening. The Korean War is underway. And towards the end, there's an image where it shows a Marine standing holding a Thompson machine gun while another Marine is kind of tilted away from the camera. Do you know what picture I'm talking about? Does that sound familiar? [00:43:32] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. [00:43:33] Speaker B: Okay, so that is the COVID image of with the Old Breed by EB Sledge about the war in the Pacific in World War II. So it's not from the Korean War, in other words. Okay, so now Chromite itself. The Inchon landing on the big screen in Pyongyang, Seoul and Hollywood by Olivia Grunt Grotenhuis and Sharon lee. Published on September 15, 2020. They say Operation Chromite is loosely based on a real life mission called Operation Trudy Jackson, which I actually kind of like that name better. [00:44:04] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:44:05] Speaker B: It involved a mixed U.S. south Korean CO port led by U.S. navy Lieutenant Eugene Franklin Clark, Lieutenant Yongjiang of South Korea. So now a little bit from Wikipedia. They said the tides at Incheon have an average range of 29ft and a maximum observe range of 36ft, making the tidal range there one of the largest in the world and the literal maximum in all of Asia. When they were doing their infiltration mission to find out about what was going on and to get intel, they discovered that the tides at Incheon were not accurate to American charts. But the Japanese charts were quite good. I don't know why they have Japanese charts. That kind of threw me. They provided detailed reports on KPA artillery positions and fortifications on the island nearby, as well as in Incheon itself. They located and removed some naval mines. And they reported though, that they had not systematically mined the channels. So the mine chart seems to be completely made up. [00:45:03] Speaker A: Interesting. [00:45:04] Speaker B: Yeah. When the KPA discovered that agents had landed on islands near Incheon, they attacked the islands, including an attempted raid with six junks. Clark mounted a machine gun and sank the junks. That's pretty exciting. That's right out of a movie. In both Operation Trudy Jackson and the fictional Operation X Ray, they did secure the lighthouse. So that part is true. And they use the lighthouse to make a beacon to navigate through. So then finally, from Korean War online, Clark later took about 150 South Korean guerrillas, including his buddy Yong, on island hopping forays all the way up. And they notified Tokyo headquarters that his agents had reported large numbers of Chinese were crossing the Yalu river into North Korea. So they knew that China was going to attack. But high command discounted this information. They believed that China would not intervene, and that permeated 8th army leadership right down to the battalion level and even lower. So the entire army was ill prepared psychologically and tactically. When China attacked, the army was smashed, almost surrounded, routed, and fled from them in the longest retreat in US History. [00:46:08] Speaker A: Wow. [00:46:09] Speaker B: Yep. So that is what I have for Spy fight versus fiction. Favorite quotes. [00:46:20] Speaker A: Shall we go on to our quotes? [00:46:21] Speaker B: Sure. Why don't you go first? Because I have a lot. [00:46:23] Speaker A: All right, so I've got a few as well. So we've got. There's no God. The party says so. [00:46:29] Speaker B: Yeah, I love that one. That was my favorite quote. And the. The dubbing actor actually did a pretty good job. [00:46:34] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. Also from MacArthur, orders. Get God on the phone, tell him it's me. Tell him we need more time. [00:46:41] Speaker B: Yep, that was good, too. Liam Neeson did a good job with that one. That was another one of my favorites. [00:46:46] Speaker A: And then this is one of the other American soldiers, President Truman. MacArthur says, we have nothing to worry about because we have ladders in a lighthouse. [00:46:54] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:46:54] Speaker A: And last, I've got. I think that I'm pretty sure this is Zhang, who says, we get the chart, we get out swiftly and we get out safe. [00:47:01] Speaker B: You like those corny ones? Well, I'm gonna review a couple of corny ones as well. [00:47:05] Speaker A: All right. All right, I'll go play it back. [00:47:07] Speaker B: So there's a part where Zhang says, let's end this a movie. One liner. And Lynn says, come at me to MacArthur. I wish he said, come at me, bro, but he did not. [00:47:18] Speaker A: Oh, right, right. Yeah. [00:47:21] Speaker B: The. The sister partisan says, you need to get your crap in one bag. That was awesome. MacArthur says, I'm Douglas MacArthur. I win wars. Yep, yep, I love that. And then finally, I will go with a funny one, which is one of the. One of the spies when they fail to get the mine chart, he says, can't they just use a minesweeper or something? [00:47:44] Speaker A: Right? Yep, yep. [00:47:46] Speaker B: Which is totally the kind of thing I would say if I was there. It's like, yeah, they didn't think of that. That's why they have you risk your life ratings. All right, so now it is time for our ratings. On a scale of 1 to 10, martinis, 1 being even worse. Than Avengers 1998 and 10 being even better than Mission Impossible. Ghost Protocol. How would we rate Operation Chromite? I guess I usually go first. Right, you do. [00:48:14] Speaker A: So I'm curious. [00:48:15] Speaker B: Okay, so I'll start with the good stuff. Like I said, up until the part where they extract Rao, I thought it was really solid. Like, a lot of good action, interesting, cool characters, a different setting. I like foreign movies. It's based on a true story that's all really good. However, the emotional melodrama wasn't so bad. And even though the movie's an hour and 50 minutes, it still felt 20 minutes too long. [00:48:43] Speaker A: Interesting. All right. All right. [00:48:44] Speaker B: I didn't like the way everybody died and just fighting and fighting and fighting and fighting and shooting and shooting and so much blasting. But I'm gonna be generous. I feel like people should. I feel like it's a pretty good movie. I'm gonna give it a 7 out of 10. Even though I don't like giving sevens. I feel like this one earned it because it's. It's good. I think it's worth your time. Yeah, the dumping is funny if you watch it with the dubbing. [00:49:09] Speaker A: Yeah. So, like. Like I've said before, you know, I didn't know anything about this particular mission, nor do I really know that much about this time in history, but I was very entertained. Like I said, the music is throughout the movie. Not just in the beginning, like the scene where I called it out, but throughout the movie. The music is really good and really effective setting the mood. I liked the characters. You know, some of them were stereotypes of. All right, we've got the, you know, the young one, the old one who are friends, or the one who's got a family or anything like that. So they're kind of stock characters, but they still worked pretty well. I liked Zhang. Zhang was a good, you know, action hero for this thing. And I'm trying to remember, though. Like, I. I know we like the big truck case, and he gets into the fist fight, and we see them pan over to the motorcycle. I don't think we actually see him get to ride the motorcycle, do we? [00:50:04] Speaker B: I thought we did. Maybe it was a stunt guy. [00:50:07] Speaker A: I don't. I'm trying to remember. Maybe I looked away when they did it, but I was like, oh, well, that's besides the point. So I enjoyed this movie a lot. I thought. You know, I was wondering how much was actually accurate once we got to, oh, this thing keeps escalating. Like, that's probably not accurate, but still entertaining. So I'm going to give this just a little bit higher than you. I'm going to give seven and a half out of ten. [00:50:28] Speaker B: Something else I forgot to mention is I didn't get to see the music so much because this movie has this issue that movies love now and I guess it exists in 2016 where the dialogue scenes are very quiet and then the action scenes are very loud, so I had to keep turning the volume up and down not to annoy my neighbors with the loud gunshots and all that. Anything else to say about Operation Chromite? [00:50:55] Speaker A: I don't think so. Okay, well, thank you all for joining us. You can find us on social media at the Spy Fi Guys on Facebook, Blue Sky, YouTube and Instagram and our merch [email protected] until next time. I'm Christian and I'm Zach and we are the Spy Fi Guys Signing off Foreign thank you for listening to the Spy Fi Guys. If you enjoyed our podcast, please be sure to give us a five star rating on itunes. The theme song from this podcast is Mistake the getaway by Kevin McLeod from Incompetech.com licensed under Creative Commons by Attribution 3.0 Films, Books and television shows reviewed by our podcasts are the intellectual property of their respective copyright holders and no infringement is intended. [00:51:43] Speaker B: This is a personal podcast. Any views, statements or opinions expressed in this podcast are personal and belong solely to the participants. They do not represent those of people, institutions, or organizations that the participants may or may not be associated with in a professional or personal capacity. Unless explicitly stated. Any views or opinions are not intended to mine any religion, ethnic group, club, organization, company or individual. [00:52:08] Speaker A: You can find our podcast on social media at thespy fi guys on Facebook, Blue Sky, YouTube, and Instagram.