But though Eom Yu-na’s screenplay sometimes states the obvious - “Things are getting bad here,” a character declares well past the point of outright catastrophe - it’s a deftly imagined slice of history, one that aims not for a sweeping historical perspective but a portrait of personal transformation. The name of South Korea’s president at the time, Chun Doo-hwan, is never uttered in the film, which skirts the issue of American support for the dictator. The use of slo-mo amounts to the film’s rare instances of unnecessary emphasis far more effective is Kim’s tearful, compassionate response to the murderous scenes unfolding around him. Dynamically captured by DP Go Rak-sun, these include a tense checkpoint encounter and a climactic mountain-road chase whose metal-on-metal violence is all the more shocking for the pastoral backdrop. Jang, whose previous feature, the 2011 war story The Front Line, was South Korea’s submission to the Academy Awards’ foreign-language category, choreographs strong action sequences outside Gwangju as well as within its periphery. Two locals prove indispensable to him and Kim: a genial aspiring musician (Ryu Jun-yeol), whom Hinzpeter enlists as a translator, and a generous-spirited Gwangjucabbie (Yoo Hai-jin).
As one traumatized witness puts it, “There aren’t enough coffins in Gwangju.”Īiming his video camera at the clashes between civilians and heavily armed troops, first from a rooftop vantage point and then in the midst of the pandemonium, the journo soon becomes targeted by the authorities.
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They find a city under lockdown, with local newsrooms shuttered and TV reports labeling the pro-democracy demonstrators “radicals and gangsters.” Then they stumble into a bloodbath.
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A sense of professional pride, in addition to the lure of the much-needed money, pushes Kim to complete the trip via backroads. With neither man fluent in the other’s language, the two haggle over whether to proceed once roadblocks pop up to hinder their way to Gwangju.
Martial law has been declared nationwide, but with university students taking to the streets with particular fervor in the southern city, Gwangju is under retaliatory military siege, cordoned off and with its phone lines cut.Īs the concisely handled setup makes clear, Kim’s passenger, Jürgen Hinzpeter (Thomas Kretschmann), is a reporter for the German pubcaster who has made a beeline from Tokyo upon hearing of troubles in the neighboring country.
A Seoul widower struggling to make ends meet - and not averse to asking his landlord for a loan - he snatches a lucrative fare to Gwangju, more than 150 miles south of the capital, from another driver, with no clue to the danger that lies ahead. Song’s character, Kim, is, at first, an accidental participant in the shattering events.
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