K-Drama Special: Gwangju Uprising
A Taxi Driver
By Sharon Stern
This month we are focusing on the events before, during and after the Gwangju Uprising. This is an extremely painful period of history for South Korea and depicting it on the screen is always going to be controversial – critiques of whether the story was true enough, raw enough, etc. There are a number of movies that address this important period. Three of them are truly must-watch movies, if you want a good overview of what happened, without watching a documentary. Because they are not documentaries, the emotional settings of the films help you understand what was going on in a way that a documentary cannot. The three in combination give you a good historical overview to the events that began the multiple uprisings and protests that eventually led to the overthrow of military dictatorship and the beginning of democracy in South Korea.
Feature Films
These three films are described below in date order of when the events they depict took place.
12.12 The Day - 서울의 봄 - 2023
Available on Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV (rentable), Peacock, Viki (with subscription), Kocowa, YouTube (free with ads)
This film tells the history of the coup d’etat that took place December 12, 1979. You can read more about the historic context in this month’s history article, but the assassination of President Park Chun Hee in October of 1979, the state of martial law declared by the new president Choi Kyu-Hah, his swearing in as president on December 6, 1979 and subsequent coup on December 12, 1979 are all a continuum historic moments that lead up to the coup d’etat of the civilian government on May 17, 1980 and the Gwangju Uprising in May, 1980. It is important to understand all of these incidents as they fed into each other. This is a military-political film that keeps you on the edge of your seat. When it was released in theaters, people were uploading pictures to social media of their heartbeat while watching the film – it is that intense.
A Taxi Driver - 택시운전사 - 2017
Available on Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV (rentable without a subscription), The Roku Channel (free with ads), Hoopla (free with a library card), Viki (free), PlutoTV (free with ads), YouTube (free with ads)
The film is loosely based on the story of a real taxi driver from Seoul who unintentionally becomes involved in the Gwangju Uprising. The taxi driver is played by Song Kang-Ho (Parasite, The Throne, Broker) and is based on German journalist Jürgen Hintzpeter’s interactions with the taxi driver Kim Man-Seob. At the time the film was made, not much was known about the real taxi driver, so the character in the film is mostly fictitious, but there really was a taxi driver named Kim Sa-Bok and his son was found and interviewed after the film was released. He ends up driving the journalist to Gwangju in the middle of the uprising. Hintzpeter is played by Thomas Kretschmann (The Pianist).
1987: When the Day Comes - 2017
Amazon Prime Video (rentable), YouTube (rentable)
At the other end of the timeline, this film tells the story of the events leading up to the June Democratic Uprising, triggered by the death of a student who was tortured to death, and which will finally end in the collapse of the military dictatorships. The film starts with the death of the student and the cover up by the police. Despite the Police Commissioner’s attempt to have the body cremated, an autopsy takes place. The autopsy results are leaked to the press. The Police Commissioner tries to have two detectives take the blame, but this information also gets leaked by a prison guard to activists. The guard’s niece reluctantly gets pulled into seeing evidence of the Gwangju Uprising and other atrocities and eventually joins the protest movement.
K-DRAMAS DEPICTING THE GWANGJU UPRISING
There are three dramas that are set in the timeframe of the Gwangju Uprising and focus on the events that took place during that time. Unfortunately, the older two are not streaming at the moment.
Youth of May - 오월의 청춘 - 2021
Viki – Starring: Lee Do-Hyun, Go Min-Si, Lee Sang-Yi, Keum Sae-Rok
Genre: Historic, medical, romance, melodrama
This drama follows the lives of medical student Hwang Hee-Tae (Lee Do-Hyun) and nurse Kim Myung-Hee (Lee Sang-Yi) in Gwangju during the Uprising. Instead of following the events like a documentary, it tells their love story and how it could not possible be ordinary or normal because of what was going on around them. What would have been their plans get upended and their lives change. Because this is a K-drama, not every moment is serious nor political. It starts off pretty rosy, in fact. But it does thread the events of the time throughout.
5th Republic - 제5공화국 - 2005
Viki | Genre: Medical drama, rom-com
This 41-episode drama had a very large ensemble cast. This was the fifth in the Republic series of dramas, following the five governments post WWII and was set in the 5th Republic of Chun Doo-Hwan, between 1981–1988. It covers both the Gwangju Uprising and the June Democratic Uprising. 17 former politicians that were in the government of President Chun tried to halt the production of the drama. When they couldn’t halt the production, they threatened legal action because of claims of portrayal of historical distortion. Despite the threats, the series aired. I hope that this drama gets streamed again, at some point.
Sandglass – 모래시계 – 1995
This drama, which is unfortunately not currently streaming, broke many records when it came out in 1995. The events of the 1980s were still fresh and for many raw. The drama covers events in the 1970s and 1980s and interspersed news video throughout its episodes. It drew an audience of 64.5% at its peak, which is crazy enormous. It starred Choi Min-Soo, Go Hyun-Jung and Park Sang-Won, all of who became big stars, though Choi’s career has been touched by controversies.
The drama tells the story of two friends and a woman that one friend introduces to the other. Of course it tells personal stories of the characters, but it covers the Gwangju Uprising in bloody detail and sent shockwaves through the very large viewing audience. It is said to have influenced the trial of the president at the time of the Uprising, Chun Doo-Hwan. It showed Monday – Thursday and it was reported that traffic slowed, government offices closed early and office workers headed home to watch the drama. Dramas really can have that much impact. Because this drama was an important part of South Korean history, we can hope it will be re-aired so that younger viewers can see it.
Additional FILMS
Several other films about the Gwangju Uprising are available on streaming services.
Peppermint Candy – 박하사탕 – 1999
Available on Apple TV
This film tells the story of 20 years of a soldier’s life, from 1979 – 1999, but it tells it in reverse order. There are seven segments showing moments in the man’s life and it isn’t until the end that we understand the two-decade old experiences that have shaped the present, including his mandatory military service during the Gwangju Uprising. It is a tragic film that helps show critical moments in South Korean history through the eyes of a single individual. The film stars Sul Kyung-Gu (Just appeared in Hyper Knife).
The Old Garden – 오래된 정원 - 2007
Available on Amazon Prime Video
The film starts when Hyun-Woo (Ji Jin-Hee – Jewel in the Palace, KickKickKickKick) is released from prison after 17 years. He had been involved in the student movements during the Gwangju Uprising. The film flashes back to 17 years earlier, when Hyun-Woo fled to a rural area to hide, taking refuge at the home of Han Yun-Hee (Yum Jung-Ah – Sky Castle) and the two form a relationship. When Hyun-Woo learns that most of his fellow protesters have been imprisoned, he feels guilty and returns to the heart of the protests in Seoul. He learns after his imprisonment and release that Yun-Hee stayed faithful to him throughout his imprisonment. The film is based on the best-selling novel of the same name by author Hwang Sok-Young.
26 Years – 26년 - 2012
Available on Viki (free)
This film was based on the manhwa that was made into a webtoon. It is a completely fictional story of five people (an Olympic shooter, a business man, a policeman, a private security man and a gangster) that get together to assassinate President Chun Doo-Hwan, responsible for the massacre at Gwangju. In real life, Chun was convicted of crimes connected to the Gwangju Massacre, but then pardoned by President Kim Dae-Jung. In the film, 26 years after the massacre, these five people get together to final enact revenge on the man responsible for ruining their and many other people’s lives.
The Attorney – 변호인 - 2013
Available on Viki, PlutoTV, PlexTV
Starring: Song Kang-Ho, Kim Young-Ae, Oh Dal-Su, Kwak Do-Won, Im Si-Wan
The film is inspired by a real event that took place in 1981 called the “Burim Case” where, under the regime of President Chun, 22 students, teachers and office workers that were in a book club were arrested without warrants on trumped up charges that they were North Korean sympathizers. A tax lawyer from Busan got together a legal team to defend them against the government’s charges. The lawyer was Roh Moo-Hyun who became a human rights attorney and later president of the Republic from 2003-2008. One of the team members was Moon Jae-In, who also served as president from 2017-2022. Part of the government’s arguments at the time in this case and others was that laws do not apply in cases of national security. The film is fictitious, but touches on true details and events. Even though this isn’t specifically about Gwangju, remember that there were many horrible incidents in a continuum during this period of history.
The Man Standing Next - 남산의 부장들 - 2020
Available on Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV
This film is based on a novel of the same name. It portrays high-ranking officials in the government and the KCIA a month and a half before the assassination of President Park Chung-Hee in 1979. It covers terror rampant at the time, in these important events that led up to cascading events prior to the Gwangju Uprising. It also covers the issues involved in Koreagate, which was a US investigation into corruption of the KCIA. The film was criticized outside of Korea as being to full of political detail unknown to audiences outside of Korea, but is praised for the portrayal of the actual assassination.
NOT CURRENTLY STREAMING
Keep your eyes open for these because they could appear on a streaming service at some point.
A Single Spark – 아름다운 청년 전태일 - 1995
This film is set in Seoul in the early 1980s and tells the story of an activist that is in hiding, writing the history of a garment worker who committed suicide to bring attention to labor abuses – working long hours and full weeks, no time off, dangerous working conditions, no benefits and very low pay. The worker who committed suicide had made a report of the conditions that broke labor laws for the Ministry of Labor. Because he did this, he is fired. The activist gets the help of a journalist who publishes a report in the newspaper. That gets the Ministry of Labor’s attention and the workers believe they can get change. They begin to protest in the street, like the students in Gwangju, but they realize the government isn’t going to do anything. That’s when the worker believes he needs to do something big and at a protest where they burn a copy of the labor laws, he pours petrol on himself and lights himself on fire.
A Petal – 꽃잎 - 1996
A young girl is caught up in the 1980 Gwangju massacre, where Korean soldiers killed hundreds, if not thousands, of protesters who opposed the country’s takeover by the military the year before. Flashbacks show the girl seeing her mother shot to death in the massacre. The film spurred the Korean public to demand the truth behind the incident, and their government eventually opened previously classified files on the massacre.
May 18 – 화려한 휴가 - 2007
This film tells a story in the middle of the Gwangju Uprising events, with common characters and their responses to harsher and harsher military crackdowns on their lives. It received some criticism for being overly melodramatic, but praised for its true-to-life depiction of the violence.
Excavator (also called Fork Lane) – 포크레인 – 2017
Tells the story of a paratrooper sent in to suppress the Gwangju demonstrations. 20 years later, he is working as an excavator and finds things that reveal the truth about what happened 20 years earlier.
Gwangju Video: The Missing – 광주비디오: 사라진 4시간 - 2020
This is a documentary made for the 40th anniversary of the Gwangju Uprising. It includes archival footage of events, interviews with witnesses, international and national news footage. The first half of the film documents events leading up to the massacre. There are no photos or videos of the four hours of the massacre because everyone was either defending their lives or afraid. The filmmaker began by trying to find photos or film of these four hours. Realizing that none existed, he collected what testimony he could, regretting that many witnesses had already passed away.
Kim Gun – 김군 - 2018
This is a documentary that starts with a photo of an unknown activist that the government claimed was a North Korean spy. 35 years after the photo was taken, the truth of who it is a photo of was still unknown. The filmmaker digs to find the story behind the photo, finally finding someone who recognizes the man and in so doing tells the bloody details of the Gwangju Massacre.
No Name Stars – 오월 - 2001
This is a documentary about the ordinary people that lived through the Gwangju Uprising. The bus drivers, the older ladies that brought food to protestors, the shop owners that shared their stock. These people are not documented as the stars of the day. They were still there and still have memories and scars. This documentary tells their stories.
