How accurate is the Korean Film "The Brotherhood of War"? Link in the post

by Algebrace

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taegukgi_%28film%29

Im not asking about the people but rather the setting of the film. Is it accurate what is portrayed i.e. maggots in the food or North Koreans booby trapping corpses in their retreat or is it dramatized?

RevengeofTim

Definitely accurate, at least in those details. The central plot is obviously a little more fictional, but the 'experience' of the war is fairly accurate.

For example, the booby trapped corpses; in 'Understanding the Korean War' by Arthur Mitchell, he offers that it was so common that American soldiers often used hooks and chains to remove corpses found while advancing if they looked suspicious. (page 160)

Booby trapped corpses are often mentioned in oral histories too; (Source: http://www.wisvetsmuseum.com/collections/oral_history/transcriptions/R/Roeder,%20Elroy%20-%20WPT%20-%20_OH%201023_.pdf)

'And so later on that night when the Americans come through hoping that they could get their bodies, they found out that the bodies had been booby-trapped, which meant that if they touched them, they simply would blow up. So they never got them that particular time.'

(Source: http://www.thememoryproject.com/stories/2369:don-allen/)

As for rotten food, that's common enough across nearly every war until the invention of vacuum packed MRE's (Meals, Ready to Eat)