Korean Film Review: A Taxi Driver (2017)

If you enjoyed Song Kang Ho’s performance in Parasite, I recommend the film A Taxi Driver.

Although to be honest, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to watch this film at first because of the subject matter. It’s set during the pro-democracy demonstrations in Korea in May 1980. And it centres around the harrowing events that took place during the Gwangju Uprising, which is also known as the Gwangju Massacre.

It began on May 18 1980. But by the end of the demonstrations hundreds of demonstrators had been killed by government troops. The exact figures are not known.

But this is such a great film because despite the tragic context, it blends tension with much needed comic interludes to be moving and memorable.

Song Kang Ho also plays King Yeongjo in the fab film The Throne.

A TAXI DRIVER: THE STORY

The film is based on the true story of a Seoul taxi driver who takes a German journalist from Seoul to Gwangju in the southwest.

The taxi driver has no idea why the journalist wants to go there and why he is willing to pay him lots of money to take him! At first he thinks it’s his lucky day – Gwangju is several hours away from Seoul by car so this is a lucrative fare.

So he sets off quite happily clueless about what’s waiting for them. Even when they reach the army checkpoints, he tries to make friendly banter with the young soldiers. After all, he had done military service too. But he soon begins to realise that something is terribly wrong.

The driver and the journalist are not allowed to enter Gwangju as army cordons prevent anyone getting in or out. At first the taxi driver wants to turn back but the journalist, (played by German actor Thomas Kretschmann) insists they continue and the taxi driver risks his own life to get past the army barriers.

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Life before the INTERNET

One of the most thought-provoking aspects of the film is that it centres on something that in the age of technology many of us take for granted – information. And what it means when we can’t access information.

This was a time when the government, led by a military general, controlled the news outlets and of course there were no smartphones or Internet. So citizens in other parts of the country had no idea what was going on in Gwangju.

Apparently, people in the Busan area were able to get Japanese news on TV (Busan is in on the South East coast just a short boat ride from Kyushu in Japan) until the Korean authorities realised what was happening and put a stop to it!

APATHY TO PRO-DEMOCRACY

Another interesting feature of the film is that it highlights the fact that not everyone in Korea was into fighting for democracy!

The taxi driver protagonist has no interest in the pro-democracy marches. And at the beginning of the film he doesn’t understand what the students are complaining about: even though the country is under martial law.

In fact, his own focus, like many others, is on making money to look after his family. The students should try working under the hot sun in the Middle East, he mutters to himself. Then they’d realise how lucky they are to live in Korea.

(Many Korean men, including my father-in-law, worked on construction sites in the Middle East to save money in the 1970s).

But when he gets to Gwangju and sees what’s going on, he has a change of heart.

Yes, there are scenes of violent clashes between protestors and the army, but they are not dwelt on too long. What we see is enough.

It is the reaction of the taxi driver played brilliantly by Song Kang Ho that is the most moving part of the film. His eyes are opened to what has really been going on in his own country.

There are several books in English on the Gwangju massacre.

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WHO WAS THE TAXI DRIVER?

There’s a statue in Gwangju of the  journalist (Jürgen Hinzpeter) who risked his life to document what happened there. But the identity of the taxi driver remained a mystery for many years.

After he left Korea, the journalist tried to get in touch with the taxi driver but he couldn’t find him.

Then recently, the driver’s family came forward to reveal that he had died of cancer back in 1984. Jürgen Hinzpeter died a year before the film was made in 2016.

WHY DID THE PROTESTS IN GWANGJU GET SO HEATED?

Before Korea became a democratic country, the 70s and 80s were a volatile time. President Park Chung Hee and his wife were both assassinated in the 1970s.

And then in 1979 Military General Chun Doo Hwan seized power. Pro-democracy demonstrations by university students were growing and Chun was not about to accept this! So he decided to restore order with government troops.

First he needed a reason to do this, so he blamed the student protests on North Korea. He suggested that North Korea was behind the unrest and was using this as an opportunity to invade. (This was later proved to be false) Chun declared full martial law and started arresting political rivals and closing universities.

He arrested his main political rival – Kim Dae Jung who came from South Jeolla in the liberal southwest. (Read more about regional political rivalry in Korea)

There were already peaceful pro-democracy protests going on in the southwest in Gwangju. But the arrests led to protests becoming more passionate and eventually the army was sent in to regain control.  (That’s according to The Two Koreas A Contemporary History by Don Oberdorfer and Robert Carlin.)

WHAT WAS THE AFTERMATH OF THE UPRISING?

Eventually, democratic elections were held in 1987. Kim Dae Jung became president years later and won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2000. Meanwhile, Chun Doo Hwan was arrested on many charges ranging from corruption to murder.

2017 was the 30 year anniversary of democracy in South Korea. It was also the year that peaceful protests led to the impeachment of former President Park Guen Hye.

These days protests are peaceful, but the political divide between the conservative southeast and the liberal southwest remains strong.

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