In 1950, just a few months after North Korean forces have overrun most of South Korea, an American-led UN coalition is deployed to Korea to aid the struggling South Koreans. General Douglas MacArthur devises a secret plan to attack behind enemy lines at the port city of Incheon. The risky strategy is opposed by leaders of the other military branches, forcing MacArthur to devise a clandestine operation to gather essential information from within occupied Incheon by coordinating a weeklong South Korean intelligence operation known as "X-ray".
The linchpin of this top-secret incursion, Captain Jang Hak-Soo of the ROK Navy Intelligence Unit (a former Korean People's Army officer who defected to South Korea after seeing his father executed in front of him by his fellow communist officers), and seven members of the X-Ray unit disguise themselves as a Korean People's Army inspection unit and infiltrate the North Korean command center in Incheon, coordinated by the Soviet-trained commander Lim Gye-Jin, a protégé of Kim Il Sung. Their prime objective is to determine the placement of North Korean defenses (such as mines and artillery) and the tactical characteristics of the Incheon harbor (notorious for swift currents and major tidal surges), and secure a lighthouse crucial to the landing's success.
Immediately suspicious of Jang's "inspection mission", Lim attempts to impede his comrade's investigation and orders his staff to monitor the new arrivals closely. The U.S. command relays MacArthur's orders to obtain navigation charts showing naval mine placements in the harbor and prepare a strategy to assist the coalition forces with landing an amphibious assault in a narrow two-hour window between tides. When contacts within the South Korean military intelligence unit known as KLO (Korea Liaison Office, predecessor to present-day South Korean Headquarters of Intelligence Detachment, or HID) warn Jang that time is running out to successfully complete the mission, he pushes his group to extremes. Meanwhile, in Tokyo, MacArthur prepares Operation Chromite, an invasion force of 75,000 UN troops and over 200 warships, to imminently depart for the Korean Peninsula.[8]
The film was number-one on its opening at the South Korean box office, grossing US$18.47 million.[7] with around seven million tickets sold as of 5 December 2016[update]. It grossed US$50 million worldwide.[2]
On review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 40% based on 20 reviews, with an average rating of 5/10.[12] At Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 50 out of 100, based on 8 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".[13]
Extended cut
A South Korean release of the Blu-Ray version put the extended cut at 141 minutes.[14]
The Battle of Jangsari 9.15, a sequel to the film Chromite, was released in 2019, the second part of a trilogy.[15] The film covers a later small attack at Jangsari, intended to draw North Korean attention from Inchon.[16]
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