Aside from BTS and Bong Joon-ho, most Americans probably don't consider South Korea a major player on the world stage. As for North Korea, they've been designated as a longshot threat run by an insane leader with a hot temper and nuclear weaponry. I don't know if such hierarchical political views of the earth do us well. We all occupy the same planet and wars between two nations can assume global importance soon enough. Israel and Palestine, anyone? In truth, the conflicts, genocides, uprisings and dictatorships concern us all. As Toni Morrison once put it: "The function of freedom is to free someone else." If we're not moved my the decimation in the Middle East, the Democratic Republic of the Congo or the Ukraine, how civilized are we really? And so, a movie like Escape from Mogadishu, about South and Korean diplomats working together to find safe harbor amid a civilian rebellion in Somalia has plenty to say about governance, negotiations, police brutality, children with guns...
As the South's Ambassador Han, Kim Yoon-seok is morally slippery but well-intentioned. His stoic ounterpart Ambassador Rim, Huh Joon-ho brings a respectfulness not always accorded the neighbors from the North. (Each has a hot-headed assistant played by Zo In-sung and Koo Kyo-hwan respectively.) Once the two sides team up (seeking assistance from Italy and Egypt, not the U.S. and China by the way), Ryu Seung-wan's historical drama really gets cooking. I don't know whether the fleeing Koreans really wrote blood types on their children's arms or bulletproofed their cars by duct-taping hardcover books on the hood but it sure leads to one of the most exhilarating getaways in recent memory. Which isn't to say the survivors have escaped everything. Not by a long shot. And that acknowledgment makes Escape from Mogadishu not just good but very good.
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