The Korean War: Fire and Ice (1999)

30/11/1999 Documentary 2h 56m

Overview

This is the definitive story of the Korean War, revealing the pain, glory and pathos of an often forgotten conflict fought at the mid-point of the 20th Century. It was the first conflict to fall under the newly-formed United Nations' watch; the first war where jet fighters became a common sight in the skies above the battlefield; the first major flashpoint of the Cold War and the nuclear age. As Eastern and Western powers circled each other like wary prize fighters, the Korean conflict soon became a proxy war as an intervention force led by the United States and its allies quickly found themselves pitted against a North Korean military assisted by the resources of newly-formed Communist China and the Soviet Union. The war raged for three years at a cost of over two millions lives before an armistice delivered an uneasy peace in 1953; a legacy that still hangs in balance to this day across a divided Korean nation.