“The Attorney” movie strikes a nerve, draws more than 6 million views

Posted on : 2014-01-02 16:28 KST Modified on : 2019-10-19 20:29 KST
Story based on human rights defender reflects to many the perilous state of democracy in today’s South Korea
 Gimhae
Gimhae

By Kim Hyo-sil, staff reporter

As the movie ended, the theater erupted into applause. Even some of the people weeping in the darkness put their hands together. It was an unusual site to find at an ordinary theater, rather than an advance screening or film festival. The cinema in Seoul was packed on the last night of 2013, filled with people who had come to ring out the year with a viewing of director Yang Woo-suk’s “The Attorney.” The crowd was a diverse bunch sharing a rollercoaster ride of emotion - everyone from middle-aged couples with children to younger working people who had made an “end-of-year outing” of it.

“The Attorney” is fast turning into a social phenomenon. On Jan. 1, it marked six million admissions, just two weeks after its premier. One million people saw it on Dec. 31 and Jan. 1 alone. “Avatar,” which holds the box office record in South Korea with 13,620,000 admissions, took 17 days to hit the six million mark.

“The Attorney” has benefited from many people who have come to see it multiple times, sometimes bringing their parents along. Pictures of late former President Roh Moo-hyun, taken from the moments in the June 1987 democratization movement that are shown in the film, have been linked and re-linked to online. Some have started posting tickets at Roh’s grave.

The university student case, so-called Burim, shown in the film was the largest communist frame-up in South Korea’s history, which occurred in Busan just after the military regime of Chun Doo-hwan took power in 1981. It was also the moment when Roh began his career as a human rights attorney by defending victims of torture.

Film experts and members of the public alike agreed that a large part of the movie’s strength is its resonance with the events of today. Some have called it a cinematic answer to the “How are you nowadays?” social movement, a recent campaign to draw attention to the sorry state of democracy in South Korea.

“Like you see in the movie, ordinary people today are forced to focus just on their immediate interests,” said Kim Ji-young, a 42-year-old woman who came with a friend to see the film “Nothing has improved with the unjust conditions that left people in that kind of position.”

Another viewer, 32-year-old Lee Sang-gyu, said, “Watching the movie really brought home to me what the title was talking about it.” The Korean title of “The Attorney” also translates as “the defender.”

“It made me think about what it means to defend basic rights and the human rights of citizens from the repressive forces of the state,” Lee explained.

Film critic Hwang Jin-mi commented on the parallels between the film and current events.

“Ever since the previous administration [under Lee Myung-bak], the essence of democracy and citizens’ political rights have found themselves in jeopardy,” she said. “In particular, we’ve been moving backwards on economic democratization, which became a new theme last year with so many people suffering desperately since the foreign exchange crisis [of the late 1990s].”

“It is a film that awakens a zeitgest of democracy,” Hwang said.

Audiences have been impressed with the film’s careful crafting and the actors’ outstanding performances. Song Kang-ho, who plays the title role of Song U-seok, the film’s Roh figure, has been cited repeatedly as a major factor in the film’s unexpected success, giving a performance that draws the viewers in and inspires deep empathy.

“I came to watch the movie because I loved President Roh, but it was Song Kang-ho that I saw, not Roh Moo-hyun” said a 40-year-old viewer surnamed Cho.

“He did an excellent job of showing the kind of ordinary citizen who has never really paid much attention to social issues because he’s been so focused on survival, but in some corner of his mind feels senses of emptiness and frustration,” Cho explained.

Hwang said the theme of the film is illustrated in the scene where Song declares in court that, “a country is its people.”

“The essence of democracy is that when an administration is not normal, the people can change it,” she said.

Some viewers have criticized aspects of the film. One common complaint is that it presents the liberal citizens’ movement as the driving force in the popular campaign, while neglecting the roles of the labor and student movements of the 1980s.

“As someone who lived through that time, I found it unfortunate the way university students - the most combative group at the time - were presented as weak,” said cultural critic Lee Taek-gwang.

“In resorting to a kind of ‘democracy vs. anti-democracy’ framework, it seemed to reflect the vastly diminished place progressives occupy today,” Lee said.

 

Please direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]

 

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