One South Korean counterpart for the Kent State Shooting of 1970 could be the Gwangju Uprising of 1980 during which protesting university students and sympathetic citizens were shot — in the thousands! — by a military that had basically just staged a coup following the president's assassination. Was justice served afterwards? Hardly. So Cho Geun-hyun's historical fantasy imagines four traumatized children of the revolution who have grown up eager for revenge. It's a fairly small group of rebels: a sharpshooter (Han Hye-jin), a security officer (Bae Soo-bin), a rookie cop (Im Seul-ong), an older regretful soldier (Lee Kyeong-yeong), and a food-cart owner (Jin Goo) whose face has a cut that makes him look like a Harlequin.
The source of their ire is "The Man" (Jang Gwang), a politician who's apparently impervious to criticism and living a luxurious life devoid of any real socializing. What constitutes revenge varies from person to person. Does he need to issue a formal apology? Grovel and cry? Admit his crimes and go to prison? Or die? Eventually, most of these vigilantes realize that the only one they can make happen is the last one and that's going to be a struggle. An extended flashback in cartoon reveals the horrors that led them to where they are. But where they go after the final frame is anyone's guess. America might be one option. Purgatory, another. But with a run time well over two hours, you might stop conjecturing as to what lies ahead.
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