By Minnie Chi
How revolutionary is Kang Woo-seok's new film on Cold War intrigue on the Korean peninsula?
Translated by Lois Lee, Joon Im and Minnie Chi
The poster for director Kang Woo-seok's latest Cold War film, Silmido, reads:
There was no name
There was no identity to the name
There was no one to rescue
The secret that's been hidden for 32 years is finally told!
What really happened on August 23, 1971 when an uprising broke out in downtown Seoul was kept in the closet by the South Korean government. The topic only began to emerge when military rule ended in the 1990s. On this tragic day, twenty three men headed to the presidential office of Cheong Wae Dae to revolt against their own president, Park Chung-hee. The government declared a state of emergency as the armed men seized buses and rampaged their way through police blockades, killing a police officer and an innocent young bystander. They encountered a roadblock of soldiers and after a street gunbattle, they blew themselves up with grenades. Four were captured and later executed by a firing squad.
Initially the government declared these men “armed communist agents” and later labeled them “special criminals held by the military,” which is a bit closer to the truth yet still hauntingly vague. When in 1972 Kim Han-soo, a lawyer, confronted the government over this, he was jailed for three years.
The facts behind this incident are stunning. These twenty three men were part of Unit 684, a unit created in April 1968 to retaliate against the North Korean following the North's attempt to assassinate President Park Chung-hee in Seoul on January 21, 1968. The men recruited for the special unit were outcasts, ex-convicts and prisoners on death row, chosen by the South Korean government to extract vengeance by murdering the North Korean leader, Kim Il Sung. The main incentive for the thirty one ex-criminals was to wipe their criminals records clean and start a brand new life as promised by the government.
The men were forced to cut all ties with the outside world before being taken to an isolated isle called Silmido off of Incheon. They were virtually nonexistent. There, they underwent brutally intense training for three years under higher rank sergeants, learning every trick to become assassins. They even built a replica of Kim Il Sung's residence to use for practice at the camp.
Finally, the thirty one fully trained commandos sailed out to sea in October 1968 to carryout their mission, only to be ordered back to the island by higher officials. Park's regime had decided not to disrupt the new mood of inter-Korean reconciliation and dismissed the operation, ordering all evidence to be abolished including the thirty one commandos.
Merciless training resumed on Silmido for another three years until the trained assassins rebelled on August 23, 1971, killing almost all of their trainers and setting out to the capital to take revenge upon President Park Chung-hee. However, their own mission to redeem themselves backfired. This is the story behind the mutiny that occurred nearly thirty three years ago and this is the story that is retold in Kang Woo-seok's new film, Silmido.
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Kang Woo-seok (Two Cops 1 & 2, Killing the Wife), known as the “Power Man of Chungmuro” is perhaps the only director in Korea able to produce a 10 billion won ($10 million) movie. Silmido, which opened nationwide in Korea on Dec. 24, 2003, broke the Korean record for first-week sales with a total count of 1.55 million viewers according to (Digital) Chosun Ilbo. Though media analysts attribute the movie's success to Kang's teaming up with the country's most esteemed actors (Seol Keyong-gu, Ahn Seong-gi and Jeong Jae-yeong), the director's motive in retelling one of the most shocking tales of the Cold War cannot be overlooked.
Three decades ago, Kang would surely have been arrested for making such a politically potent film as did Lee Man-hee, a filmmaker arrested in 1965 for portraying communists in too positive of a light in Seven Women Prisoners, which was banned by the government. Fortunately, times have changed and government interference in the film industry has lessened (notably since the late ‘80s) and consequently, South Korean cinema has developed to such an extent as being hailed as ‘The New Hong Kong' (see article: Enter South Korea! South Korea?!). However, unlike recent films humanizing North Koreans such as box office hits Shiri (1999) and Joint Security Area (2000), Silmido further challenges the loosening of government censorship and may even be more revolutionary in that it is based on a real-life event, one that the South Korean government would most like to forget.
But Silmido is not Kang's way of mediating a political statement. Kang told the Korea Times that he does not know all the political details of the story behind the Silmido Special Unit nor is interested in it (12-15-03). Kyung-hyun Kim, Associate Professor of Korean, at UC Irvine (Dept. of East Asian Languages and Literature) confirms that “Kang Woo-seok films are never politically motivated. They are just simply entertainment films that really do not have much bearing on social issues.”
Simply entertainment or not, films like Silmido that have uprooted the missing chapter in Korea's Cold War history have helped bring forth new awareness, instigating ex-commandos to stage protests demanding compensation for their losses. Kang, though not politically motivated, understands the importance of facing this historical event. He told the Yonhap News World Service that “The Silmido incident is an issue we need to take a look at, because it is as important an issue as the pro-democracy movement in Gwangju” (12-24-03).
Several Korean reviews remind us that Silmido is not a fact-by-fact documentary (see below). Although Kang puts an artistic spin on the historical incident by dramatically focusing in on the marred lives and hardships of the Unit 684 commandos, the line between hero and villain, good and evil is intricately blurred, which is not far from the truth behind North-South relations. Silmido is a powerful reflection of the progression of South Korea's democracy, particularly pertaining to the “Sunshine Policy,” which won President Kim Dae Jung the Nobel Peace Prize in 2000, in that it directly faces the issue of post-war peace struggle between the North and South.
Gi-Wook Shin, Associate Professor of Sociology at Stanford, views the film from a general standpoint, stating “In the general sense, yes [the film] is a product of the 'Sunshine Policy' but it is not a product that sprouted overnight. Democratization, culture and society have improved in recent years, and there is more willingness to improve inter-Korean relations, which is symbolized by the 'Sunshine Policy.' Therefore, this is a reflection of a larger social/cultural change.”
John Duncan, Director of UCLA's Center for Korean Studies specifically contextualizes Silmido. “The film, as I understand it, appears to be part of a larger movement to reexamine post-1945 history in Korea. Some films, such as JSA or Shiri, both of which sought to humanize North Koreans, can perhaps be linked to the 'Sunshine Policy.' This film, however, seems to me to be better understood within the context of the democratization of South Korea. Perhaps we can say that it represents an attempt to let a little "sunshine" into the abuses of human rights that were part and parcel of life in South Korea under Park Chung Hee. As such, it might prove a useful corrective to the so-called 'Park Chung Hee syndrome,' a term applied to a tendency among younger Koreans, disgusted with the corruption of recent South Korean administrations, to idealize Park as a strong leader free of the taint of personal corruption.”
Kang's only motive is to be a self-aware and socially conscious filmmaker who understands the possibilities of his craft that were prohibited in previous political and social times. He states, “Rather I think there's no limit in terms of material investment or subject matter in film these days, and I'm interested in making a film that can completely win over an audience. Also some might ask rather if it's necessary to make a movie that makes the intimacies of the government public. But I think our society now has been made possible because we passed through such a barbarous stage” (Korea Times,12-15-03)
All in all, Silmido is a victorious testament to the current political climate and the advancement of the industry, proclaiming that there is no better time to face this historical secret than now.
KOREAN REVIEWS OF SILMIDO
Movist.com
To believe or not to believe? That is the question
By Su-jin Shim
"The witnesses are shown in the film as putting the pieces of their story together with 100% truth and historical reference but the film does not attempt to come off as a documentation of history."
"Rather, he tries to capture how the government sacrificed its own people and ruined their lives through the use of bold fiction plus colorful images."
"By the time the scene where the men head towards the Presidential House arrives, the audience is already captured by climactic emotion and filled with empathy toward the characters because they know what is about to happen."
"As they are at the end of the road without any hope in them left, the commandos try to find any sign of humanity and begin to write their name and citizenship numbers in blood; a scene which will only make the audience cry."
Nkino.com
They were not there
By Dong-hui Hong
"Kang Woo-seok does not intend to make the film a documentary. Because he isn't the kind of a director to invest 80 million won ($8 million) to make a movie, he knew that it was more for the audience rather than to produce a blockbuster hit."
"During the production of Silmido, there were many big budget blockbuster movies that failed repeatedly and director Kang Woo-seok certainly could not overlook this and make the same mistake."
"Kang Woo-seok ended up making a fictional film to focus more on the people-to-people relationships instead of negative facts."
"The film contains humanitarianism and humor as entertainment to ease the audience. There aren't only two main characters. Once the 31 prisoners arrive at the island of Silmido, they all become main characters. The friendship between trainer and prisoner is illustrated as time goes on. That is why the movie is not overwhelmingly depressing and has some hope in it; that is also why the film is not an ordinary documentary but a fictionalized story."
Cine21.co.kr
By Un-song Yoo
"Better than a historical documentary, Silmido is a movie about the game of ‘hide-and-seek' for the place of a nation. Although it doesn't resolve exactly who the ‘good guy' is, it seems like it manages to tell a powerful story."
"The story is about the 684th corps of South Korea that consisted of 31 prisoners under the authority of officers who train them, and the CIA agents. None of these men are the main characters."
"Underneath all the noise and images, the main character is the country – a country that constantly changes personality to be ‘functional.'"
"The first half of the movie (which is quite long) shows detail by detail how a group of convicts from different backgrounds is taken to an island and form comradeship with one another."
"And why is this illustrated in the film in such detail? Because they build friendships through the arduous training they are put under, similar to Stanly Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket. Rather than focusing on the inhumane circumstances of the training, the films shows how the commandos excelled at transforming into human weapons to assassinate North Korean leader, Kim Il Sung."
"The latter half (a bit too short) is a road movie where this pack of trained men takes off into a journey in search of their nation, referring back to the story of Don Quixote.
One of the motives of the film is to remember the commandos of Special Unit 684 and to remember this tragic incident in Korea's history."
"On the day of the mission when the men are out at sea on their way to the north, the mission is cancelled and the characters are furious, yelling 'Take us to North Korea!' This scene seems unnecessary in that it forced-fed the audience the dramatic emotions felt by the men."
"If we maintained unity and had some more consistency, then maybe we really may have been able to cut the head of Kim Il Sung."
Published: Friday, January 9, 2004
