01-01-2018, 02:15 PM
This stars Mr. Big Cheeks, my affectionate nickname for Kang-ho Song, who has starred or had prominent roles in Memories of Murder (2003), The Host (2006), The Good, the Bad and the Weird (2008), Snowpiercer (2013), and many others. My goodness, he's a good actor. I keep forgetting how good.
To truly enjoy this movie, you must first suspend your disbelief that a government could lie to its people. I know that's a stretch (that a government could lie to its people), but do give it a try.
In 1980, a Seoul taxi driver agrees to take a German to Gwangju. Little does he realize that the German is a journalist, and that college students are rioting in Gwangju against a very oppressive military government, which has cut the city off from all outside contact and is playing hardball. In the beginning, the taxi driver and journalist are both in it for the money, and contemptuous of each other, but the realities of what they encounter change them deeply.
An abundance of little dramas along the way. Very well done, despite getting overly dramatized towards the end. And Mr. Big Cheeks is brilliant.
I do wish the German journalist had been made American. Then it would have been one of those feel-good movies where we're rescuing other people from their inferior selves.
P.S. I looked up the Gwungju Uprising after watching this. As it turns out, our government (under Reagan) fully supported the military takeover of South Korea and its leader, and there's strong evidence that our military bigwigs authorized the deployment of South Korean special forces to Gwangju to help put down the rioting students who were fighting for democracy. This was the beginning of strong anti-American sentiment that lasted for decades in South Korea -- until Dennis Rodman came along.
No, wait. Wrong Korea.
To truly enjoy this movie, you must first suspend your disbelief that a government could lie to its people. I know that's a stretch (that a government could lie to its people), but do give it a try.
In 1980, a Seoul taxi driver agrees to take a German to Gwangju. Little does he realize that the German is a journalist, and that college students are rioting in Gwangju against a very oppressive military government, which has cut the city off from all outside contact and is playing hardball. In the beginning, the taxi driver and journalist are both in it for the money, and contemptuous of each other, but the realities of what they encounter change them deeply.
An abundance of little dramas along the way. Very well done, despite getting overly dramatized towards the end. And Mr. Big Cheeks is brilliant.
I do wish the German journalist had been made American. Then it would have been one of those feel-good movies where we're rescuing other people from their inferior selves.
P.S. I looked up the Gwungju Uprising after watching this. As it turns out, our government (under Reagan) fully supported the military takeover of South Korea and its leader, and there's strong evidence that our military bigwigs authorized the deployment of South Korean special forces to Gwangju to help put down the rioting students who were fighting for democracy. This was the beginning of strong anti-American sentiment that lasted for decades in South Korea -- until Dennis Rodman came along.
No, wait. Wrong Korea.
I'm nobody's pony.
