Admittedly my knowledge of Korean history is limited. I've gained some awareness after over a decade of watching Korean movies and having from a handful of books about Korean-American history but I can still be surprised by seeing actual events unfold that are well-known to anyone from South Korea. In this case, while I was aware of the military coup that followed the Korean president's assassination in 1979, I did not know any details about the power struggles that preceded the subsequent dictatorship. And so, my cursory knowledge was supplanted by Hollywood happy-ending conditing.
Because of this, while watching Kim Sung Soo's informative feature 12.12: The Day, I was foolishly, even stupidly, expecting that the forces of good — as represented by two-star general Lee Tae-shin (Jung Woo-sung) — would triumph over the forces of evil — embodied by his nemesis, the power-hungry, eventual president Chun Doo-gwang (Hwang Jung-min). Like here in the United States, the integrity of a few individuals, which includes Chief of Staff Jeong Sang-ho (Lee Sung-min), is much too easily, even decisively counterbalanced by the sliminess of a single man like National Defense Minister Oh Guk Sang (Kim Eui-sung). That the Korean people were eventually able to restore their government to something closer to a true democracy is kind of amazing. In that sense, 12.12: The Day does give one a glimmer of hope. In the streets but not on the telephone.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment