Photo: Courtesy of Well Go USA
Swing Kids
1951. Barbed wire rings Geoje POW camp, yet a snappy shoe-click slices the gloom. Ro Ki-soo (EXO’s D.O.), a fiery North-Korean captive, falls hard for tap after watching Sergeant Jackson, a Harlem-bred Broadway hoofer turned U.S. Army officer, shuffle across the mess hall. Ordered to mount a Christmas revue to placate generals and restless inmates, Jackson recruits an unlikely ragtag, mismatched troupe: Kang Byung-sam, a South-Korean prisoner frantic to find his missing wife; Xiao Pang, a Chinese conscript battling angina; and sharp-tongued translator Yang Pan-rae. Together the dancers stomp ideology into dust with syncopated heels, stolen jazz, and hope until artillery roars back. Director Kang Hyeong-cheol fuses exuberant rhythm with wartime heartbreak.