Illustration : Unknown

Attack From The Sky
 

Yung-Nam Ko (고영남) | South Korea | 1976

Made in co-operation with the South Korean Ministry of Defence, this jingoistic piece of anti-communist propaganda fluff is a cheaply produced affair, full of poorly executed battle scenes, many of which look like the South Korean army training manoeuvres they really are; obvious miniatures stand-in for more explicit destruction.

The South Koreans are enjoying air dominance over the Communist North, destroying enemy convoys at will. To counter this, the North call in Moscow-trained missiles and radar expect Colonel Kik, who arrives with his daughter (Dae-Yup Lee). Kik successfully manages to dupe the South’s airforce and smuggles in a convoy of radar equipment which is successfully installed, hidden in a village church tower.

With their new equipment in position, the North, using the element of surprise, succeeds in shooting down two of the South’s fighters; one pilot is killed, but the other — Lieutenant Li (Myung-Choong Ha) manages to parachute out before impact. Alone in enemy territory, he kills a North Korean soldier and assumes the dead man’s identity — Captain Pi — effecting a successful infiltration of the newly-built radar base.

Adding a North-South reunification theme to the plot, Li catches the eye of Colonel Kik’s daughter and a romance quickly blossoms. Discovering that Li is a spy, she nevertheless renounces her allegiance to the North, assisting Li in revealing the whereabouts of the radar base to the South Korean air force.

 

 

 

Released to the UK cinema circuit in early 1978 by the obscure London International Film Distributors — the film was passed with minor cuts for an ‘A’ certificate by the BBFC. 

The Private video release, from August 1986, contains this same cut version: removed were scenes showing a soldier’s arm blown off, bloody bullet hits, blood running down a pilot’s face and an injured radio operator being stamped to death. Strangely, the video release is missing a huge sequence in the first reel showing some impressive jet fighter footage, coupled with the successful rescue mission of a downed pilot. One can only assume that the cinema print used for the video master was heavily damaged.

The alternative title of Sky Wars is worthy of mention: there are several musical cues from the John Williams score to George Lucas’ Star Wars used here — obviously without permission! Incidentally, comparison of the recent German language DVD (as Sky Wars) and the Private video release reveals that both contain unique footage not extant in either version.

aka : Sky Wars; Battle of Eagle, The; 독수리전선 

cast : Myung-Choong Ha, Dae-Yup Lee, Min-Ho Kang, Mi-Jan Bae, Oh-Jang Moon, Bo-Yung Ahn, Goong-Won Nam, Bong-Chin Chin, Sung Choi, Ki-Soo Kim, Soo-Jin Yun, Myung-Hawn Han