A north Korean guerilla is brought to the 4077 to have her wounds taken care of; but Hawkeye and B.J. have concerns that Korean Lt. Hung Lee Park (Mako) will have her tortured to get information out of her. While they have humanitarian intentions, their patient is in actuality a guerilla fighter and at one point manages to get out of her bed and tries to yank the I.V. out of a wounded American soldier. In an attempt to blindside Lt. Park, the boys have him distracted in a chess game with Charles while they try to smuggle her out of camp in an ambulance. But Park and his men stop the ambulance and take charge of their prisoner. But before leaving camp she brings down a series of invective and imprecations upon the heads of all in the MASH unit. Sometimes in a war it is important to understand that there are actual enemies out there who hate us regardless of how we might treat them. If this show were more realistic, the boys would all be looking at a court martial.
10 Reviews
Fortunes of War
Hitchcoc14 April 2015
This episode involves the issues of a doctor's oath versus the fortunes of war. A woman is brought into the MASH unit. She is a North Korean guerrilla fighter. The South Korean commander, played by Mako, can't wait to interrogate her. Of course, the doctors do everything they can to keep them from taking her. There is a scene where she tries to kill an American soldier but because of her injuries, she is unable to do so. This is a conflicted episode for me because for me murder is murder. When war starts, there are facts and one of those is that, unsettling as it is, one side is trying to kill the other and vice versa. There are some serious ethical issues here but Pierce and Hunnicutt are on the verge of courts martial for what they are doing.
Scully returns, and so does Mako
safenoe6 October 2020
Warning: Spoilers
Scully makes his second guest appearance in this story arc, and Margaret is very excited! But that's the subplot. The main plot has Lt. Hung Lee Park (played by the legendary Mako) who is keen to interrogate the enemy, who isn't as placid as she looks. This episode, directed by Alan Alda, presents a thorny dilemma about life and death in war. There are no heroes.
Can't win them all!
specterman20 January 2020
Warning: Spoilers
I sometimes can't stand to see Hawkeye alway's win, It seems in every episode he can get away with everything. Hawkeye likes to think just because he's a Doctor that he always know's best so no punishment. There are many times that he hits on all these women and yet their are no sexual harassment charges against him. He can flout authority without being reprimanded.
So it's great to finally see that this time that in spite everything Hawkeye, B.J. and Klinger do that they fail this time.
The 4077th's Losing Situation!!
ellisel10 February 2010
Act One of "Guerilla My Dreams" started with the wounded soldiers being treated for surgery in this highly suggestive episode. Little did Captain Pierce and Captain Hunnicutt knew that a wounded person was a woman. The individual was an enemy guerrilla soldier from North Korea. Lieutenant Park and his officers were in a powerful hurry to question her as she was being prepared for surgery ... all the purpose of torturing her and even killing her. The 4077th -- through Sergeant Scully -- found out that killing an enemy guerrilla soldier was one thing in Lieutenant Park's mind. Major Winchester had other plans for Lieutenant Park; and a game of chess in the Officers' Club would keep Lieutenant Park occupied for a least a brief period. At the end of Act One, Colonel Potter had Corporal Klinger contact G-2 over the telephone about the evacuation procedures of non-indigenous personnel in a war zone.
Act Two of "Guerilla My Dreams" started in Colonel Potter's office. He contacted G-2 over the telephone -- with the help of Corporal Klinger -- about the procedure. The end result: G-2 had no way of helping this wounded person flee from Korea and Lieutenant Park. Any interference from any United States military branch -- during the Korean War -- was considered a breach of Army protocol in the transfer of non-indigenous personnel. Colonel Bart Wilson was from G-2 on the telephone. Their only recourse: they had to turn her over to Lieutenant Park after she recovered from surgery.
Corporal Klinger made a useful -- but a desperate -- attempt to keep Lieutenant Park's guards busy with the brandy outside the camp. They were placing the tin cups over the fire while enjoying the brandy ... all in an attempt to remove the wounded guerrilla soldier from post-operation surgery to an ambulance without being caught in the crossfire. The plan backfired horrendously; furthermore, Lieutenant Park and his guards stopped the ambulance from leaving the camp. They dragged her from the ambulance and directly into a jeep. In the end, Lieutenant Park would have his way of executing her as they left the 4077th. They drew their rifles at everyone outside camp after Captain Pierce said "you son of a bitch" directly at Lieutenant Park. The End Result: A Brilliant 10 From The 1979-1980 Television Season!!
Act Two of "Guerilla My Dreams" started in Colonel Potter's office. He contacted G-2 over the telephone -- with the help of Corporal Klinger -- about the procedure. The end result: G-2 had no way of helping this wounded person flee from Korea and Lieutenant Park. Any interference from any United States military branch -- during the Korean War -- was considered a breach of Army protocol in the transfer of non-indigenous personnel. Colonel Bart Wilson was from G-2 on the telephone. Their only recourse: they had to turn her over to Lieutenant Park after she recovered from surgery.
Corporal Klinger made a useful -- but a desperate -- attempt to keep Lieutenant Park's guards busy with the brandy outside the camp. They were placing the tin cups over the fire while enjoying the brandy ... all in an attempt to remove the wounded guerrilla soldier from post-operation surgery to an ambulance without being caught in the crossfire. The plan backfired horrendously; furthermore, Lieutenant Park and his guards stopped the ambulance from leaving the camp. They dragged her from the ambulance and directly into a jeep. In the end, Lieutenant Park would have his way of executing her as they left the 4077th. They drew their rifles at everyone outside camp after Captain Pierce said "you son of a bitch" directly at Lieutenant Park. The End Result: A Brilliant 10 From The 1979-1980 Television Season!!
Episode on the way the communism influences people's minds
Ci-ti-zen8 March 2008
I liked this episode more than others, although it's not on my Top 10 list . I especially liked the way the producers tried to show the audience how communism was affecting the lives of those people (N. Koreans) and how they were brainwashed into thinking that any American is the enemy and must be destroyed. There's a sequence where the sick N. Korean woman, being unwatched tries to escape out of intensive care and on her wait out she decides to pull the blood IV line from a US soldier's arm. I don't know if many of you realized that... and also in the end she screams and shouts at the doctors, who wanted to save her from being tortured and possibly executed by the S. Korean Lt. (played by Mako)
Not everything is Black and White
metalrox_200030 September 2019
Warning: Spoilers
It what had to be a shocker for TV fans of that era, it turns out that the person the hero was trying to save was the ruthless killer an enemy military general said she was. When she arrives amidst the chaos of incoming casualties, one of whom is Scully, Margaret's latest boyfriend, the medics do their best to attend to everyone. As Hawkeye is attending to Guerilla Woman, Lt. Park, played with great skill by M*A*S*H semi regular Mako, stands over him, watching intently. After Hawkeye expresses his displeasure, Mako explains why he is there and his intentions. Lt. Park is so intent on questioning her, he orders his soldiers to try and remove her when the doctors backs are turned.
Lt. Park cannot understand why Hawkeye rebuffs his attempts, and Hawkeye views Park as just part of the killing machine of war. Once Scully, who knows Park's reputation, if not the man himself, explains that Park intends of killing her once he's done questioning her, Hawkeye and B.J. scheme for a way to get her out alive. Not even her attempts to murder a wounded soldier in post-op tells the doctors that they may be misguided. They just pass it off as her attempt to flee certain death. Even Charles volunteers to help, by challenging Park to a game of chess when Park lets it slip that he enjoys the game. Saying to B.J. and Hawkeye that the game would provide the perfect 'distraction.' While B.J. and Hawkeye load her onto an ambulance that night, Charles engages Park in a chess match, playing rather badly on purpose in order to keep Park distracted. However, it fails as Park and his men (who'd been duped by Klinger into drinking wine and leaving their post) quickly spring to their feet and stop the ambulance before it can leave. He removes the Guerilla woman from the ambulance and attempts to leave with her, saying that since the doctors did their job, it was time for him to his, prompting an angry Hawkeye to call him a SOB and advance on him, only for Park's men to draw their weapons on Hawkeye. A brief, a very tense stand off begins, before Park and his men retreat to the waiting jeep, with their prisoner aboard, and drive off. And we are left with Hawkeye, B.J. Potter, Klinger and Charles mulling about the complex, resigned to the fate of the woman.
The story presents a complex dilemma. Even though the true intentions of the woman are made clear in the end, one can see that once even the doctors see this as well, they remain conflicted. Though they know she's a killer, she themselves don't want to see her put to death.
Overall, this is one of the stronger episodes and the story works better because she is the killer she is considered to be. It would have been too clichéd to have her be innocent. And as for Hawkeye, who saw the world through a prism of right and wrong, he is once again reminded that's not always the case.
Lt. Park cannot understand why Hawkeye rebuffs his attempts, and Hawkeye views Park as just part of the killing machine of war. Once Scully, who knows Park's reputation, if not the man himself, explains that Park intends of killing her once he's done questioning her, Hawkeye and B.J. scheme for a way to get her out alive. Not even her attempts to murder a wounded soldier in post-op tells the doctors that they may be misguided. They just pass it off as her attempt to flee certain death. Even Charles volunteers to help, by challenging Park to a game of chess when Park lets it slip that he enjoys the game. Saying to B.J. and Hawkeye that the game would provide the perfect 'distraction.' While B.J. and Hawkeye load her onto an ambulance that night, Charles engages Park in a chess match, playing rather badly on purpose in order to keep Park distracted. However, it fails as Park and his men (who'd been duped by Klinger into drinking wine and leaving their post) quickly spring to their feet and stop the ambulance before it can leave. He removes the Guerilla woman from the ambulance and attempts to leave with her, saying that since the doctors did their job, it was time for him to his, prompting an angry Hawkeye to call him a SOB and advance on him, only for Park's men to draw their weapons on Hawkeye. A brief, a very tense stand off begins, before Park and his men retreat to the waiting jeep, with their prisoner aboard, and drive off. And we are left with Hawkeye, B.J. Potter, Klinger and Charles mulling about the complex, resigned to the fate of the woman.
The story presents a complex dilemma. Even though the true intentions of the woman are made clear in the end, one can see that once even the doctors see this as well, they remain conflicted. Though they know she's a killer, she themselves don't want to see her put to death.
Overall, this is one of the stronger episodes and the story works better because she is the killer she is considered to be. It would have been too clichéd to have her be innocent. And as for Hawkeye, who saw the world through a prism of right and wrong, he is once again reminded that's not always the case.
Just About A Jump-The-Shark Moment for Hawkeye and B.J.
reprtr4 September 2020
Warning: Spoilers
I was perturbed by this episode from the first time I saw it, as it seemed to me, in the writing, that Hawkeye and B.J. were acting not only incredibly obtuse -- especially Hawkeye, for someone who had been over in Korea for a good long while -- and downright recklessly. The whole plot set-up, in which the pair, with help from Major Winchester, try to sandbag and finally obstruct the work of an allied (i.e. South Korean) soldier, in time of war, in the lawful performance of his duty, however vile and unpleasant that duty might seem to them (and even to him), basically has Hawkeye and B.J. committing a court martial offense. The latter was something that career army officer Colonel Potter would have been telling them in no uncertain terms. And the fact that it comes down to South Korean enlisted men pointing loaded weapons at the two American doctors just rips the envelope as far as convincing, realistic drama -- in real life, the two surgeons would have likely faced trial and potential imprisonment in Fort Leavenworth. Where were the technical advisors when this script was being vetted?
Looks Can Be Deceiving
hawkspride-4707915 April 2023
Warning: Spoilers
I wasn't too fond of this episode, mostly because of Hawkeye and BJ's behavior. I thought it was Out-of-Character for them. I'm not military, though my dad was in the Air Force for 20 years, but after reading some of the reviews about how Hawkeye and BJ would be arrested and court-martialed for their behavior if this happened in real-life, I could believe that. The main issue with this episode is that everyone at MASH 4077 turned a blind eye to this woman. They think she's like every other Korean civilian they met. They never noticed how she tried to kill one of the patients and misread her actions as "trying to get away from Lt. Park". Even after she openly admitted her actions to the doctors, they still try to protect her from the firing squad. Really guys? I get Hawkeye and BJ are against the use of guns and the death penalty, but they need to understand that they can't interfere with other countries' rules. It's like the Prime Directive from Star Trek. You can't always get what you want.
Remember how Frank Burns treated every Korean Civilian as the enemy? Imagine if he was in this episode. He would rub the incident in Hawkeye's face and be all "I told you so!" and possibly threaten Hawkeye with a Court-Martial offense.
The acting is the only good thing in this episode. Mako gives another stellar performance as Lt. Park. I especially love the chess scene with Lt. Park and Charles. Other than that, this episode is...okay. It definitely earns a spot in my Top Ten Not-So-Good M*A*S*H Episodes. 5.2/10.
Remember how Frank Burns treated every Korean Civilian as the enemy? Imagine if he was in this episode. He would rub the incident in Hawkeye's face and be all "I told you so!" and possibly threaten Hawkeye with a Court-Martial offense.
The acting is the only good thing in this episode. Mako gives another stellar performance as Lt. Park. I especially love the chess scene with Lt. Park and Charles. Other than that, this episode is...okay. It definitely earns a spot in my Top Ten Not-So-Good M*A*S*H Episodes. 5.2/10.
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