Movie Review: May 18th

As planned I went to see May 18th at the Seoul Global Village, Yeoksam, on Friday afternoon. The theatre is in the Yeoksam Cultural Centre, in Gangnam. It took me longer than expected to get there, so a missed the opening sequences of the movie, but I don’t think I missed too much.

May 18th tells the story of the student uprising against the military regime in 1980, Gwangju City, South Korea. After the assassination of army general Park Chung-hee who took control of the Korean government in a coup d’état, Chun Doo-hwon, also an army general, took office. It is widely believed that Park was assassinated because of his dictatorial rule. His successor turned out to be somewhat of an authoritarian himself. When people in Gwangju were maltreated by the military, high school and college students and later other civilians as well rose up against the military in Gwangju. President Chun Doo-hwon sanctioned the massacre of the "Communist rebels". Between 18 to 27 May 1980, hundreds of civilians were beaten or shot to death. The uprising was definitely not by Communist rebels, but rather people fighting against the "democratic" dictatorial military regime.



I cried on more than one occasion while watching the film. Such atrocities really happen – and is still happening around the world. It sickens me. What is really scary is how I see once “free” countries moving in the same direction. The reason the Gwangju incident could happen so easily was because the president had a lot of centralized power and there was a “threat” (Communism) to blame shift. At present, America is in the same boat. President Bush ensured that the president has outlandish amounts of centralized power – in direct opposition to the freedoms fought for by the Founding Fathers. Also, “terrorism” has became the great scapegoat just as “Communism” was for Korea. Unless President Obama gives up the powers entrusted by his predecessor, something like the Gwangju incident can easily happen in the United States. In fact, everything for it to happen is in place; all that is needed is a slight provocation to ignite the situation. There is even a standing army in the United States, in case of “civilian unrest”. Obama might seem like the hero of the hour, and his message of hoping is sweeping up the world into a frenzy, but unless he lifts the authoritarian laws put in place by the previous government, I don’t trust him any more than I trust any other politician.

As for the movie, it is not a very good film. I think the use of stereotypical “funny characters” to lighten the mood of the macabre events depicted, spoiled the seriousness of the movie. Unlike the makers of the fabulous 2004 movie, Taegukgi (Brotherhood at War), May 18th just didn’t do justice to the historical events.

For those interested in the Gwangju Democratization Movement, I suggest you visit Gwangju itself, and the memorial park in particular. A lot of effort was done and I felt that the art (monuments, statues, etc.) somehow captured some of the emotion of the event - much better than the film, May 18th.

For an excellent film on recent Korean history rather watch Kang Je-gyu's Taegukgi (Brotherhood at War) about the Korean War.