Korean movies have been having a good deal of international success in recent years, but I think this is the first Korean film in the CJ-3B in the Movies section of CJ3B.info. And the timing is good; it so happens that this 1971 epic is being featured in November 2025 at the London Korean Film Festival, in a retrospective program of movies about Korean resistance to the Japanese occupation of 1910-1945.
Break Up The Chain is an example of the "Manchurian western" genre, set in the vast frontier of Manchuria, north of Korea, where much of the anti-Japanese resistance was based. The somewhat far-fetched plot involves three men competing with each other and with the Japanese army, to get hold of a small but valuable Buddha statue which also conceals a list of resistance fighters.
Although the period is not identified, the presence of Jeeps suggests that it must be set during World War II, the final years of the Japanese occupation.
The movie was directed by Lee Man-hee, the prolific director and writer who died at the age of 43 in 1975. It did not get much distribution in the West, so I couldn't find a poster in English. The only English word on this Korean poster is "Cinemascope," and the frame enlargements on this page are in the original Cinemascope aspect ratio of 2.35 to 1.
During the opening credits we see horses galloping and a gangster type driving a flatfender Jeep which appears to be a Mitsubishi-built CJ-3A. Although Mitsubishi didn't start building Jeeps until the early 1950s, in this film they're standing in for WWII jeeps.
In what will be a continuing source of entertainment for Jeep fans, one model often replaces another in the middle of a scene. As the credits come to an end, the gangster suddenly finds himself in a CJ-3B.
Then as he ambushes a wagon transporting a prisoner, his ride is once again a low-hood 3A. These random Jeep transformations fit right in with the plot, which one reviewer says "is so crammed full of doublecrosses and counter doublecrosses that I rarely knew who was doing what or why."
In the next scene, the same jeep role is now played by a different CJ-3A, with later front fenders added.
Then, as one group of fighters is ambushed by another group, the original 3A returns.
We get a good look at the front grille in one shot. A civilian Jeep was apparently turned into a military one with a quick paint job that painted right over the parking lights.
Towards the end of the film, we're treated to a CJ3B-JC4 which probably is intended to represent some captured Japanese military vehicle.
In this final sequence, which turns into an all-out battle with Japanese soldiers, the three central characters at last start working together.
In one more surprise, the high hood Jeep is replaced by that 3A with the new fenders. It's been painted again, but the OD is showing through in places.
It's hard to know exactly why there are so many Jeeps in Break Up The Chain. Presumably it means that different parts of these sequences were shot at different times, but that's surprising for such big scenes, with so many actors, costumes and horses.
Anyway, thanks to Federico Cavedo for finding another wild CJ-3B movie. -- Derek Redmond
There's a reasonably good subtitled copy of Break Up The Chain on YouTube.
See also Jeeps in South Korea on CJ3B.info.
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