May 18

D-

Directed by Kim Ji-Hun

South Korea, one of the world's most prosperous, educated, and progressive nations, harbors a history of governmental repression that many Westerners unfortunately are either only vaguely aware of or ignore altogether. Following the Korean War, a string of a authoritarian, often violently repressive military leaders established succesive juntas that promoted market capitalism while at the same time brutally crushing opposition. The result was a Korean nation that, although flourishing economically throughout the latter part of the twentieth century, was doing so at the expense of it's population basic human rights. The excesses of the military regimes were no more obvious than during the Gwangju Massacre which took place in late May of 1980 in which hundreds of Korean civilians were murdered in cold blood by the Korean army, presumably under the orders of the government. The event remains one of the darkest periods in Korean history and a source of bitter and vocal resentment towards the alleged perpatrators of the massacre, most notably former president Chun Doo Hwan.

Kim Ji-Hun's "May 18" attempts to capture the events almost three decades later and, in my opinion, does a lamentably poor job of it. The film revolves around two brothers,, as we all love intrest,, as they go from living peaceful, noraml lives to being thrust in the middle of the bloody Gwangju uprising, in which Gwangju's citizens rather valiantly repulsed the armies advances for several days before being violently crushed on the 27th of May. The film chooses to portray this extremely sobbering and painful event through a mix of melodrama, action, romance and comedy, a cocktail that frankly does not suit such heavy subject matter. Indeed, a historical event such as the Gwangju Massacre, which truly was one of the most repulsive single instances of governmental abuse in the second half of the 20th century, doesnt need to be repackaged as a romantic dramedy and likely shouldn't since such handling of the subject matter often comes off as insincere. This reality was understood no better than by Paul Greengrass whose 2002 film "Bloody Sunday" is the perfect example of the right way to depict a civilian massacre, namely to simply show the incident as it occured, with no frills, no romance, no light comedy or dramatic touches. Tragedies such as the Gwangju Massacre or Bloody Sunday were heartbreaking and maddening enough that simply presenting them as they occured is enough to trigger a visceral reaction of disgust, sympathy, and agner from the audience, something "May 18" never manages to do.

I have no doubt that Kim Ji-Hun's attempts at dealing with this heavy subject matter were benuine and I certainly am wary of accusing a South Korean director of not doing justice to an event that happened in his own country and one which I had no first hand experience with. Nevertheless, I came out of "May 18" disappointed that a film about such an awful event seemed to have been crafted in a way that would sell tickets as oppose to remind the world that Chun Doo Hwan, Roh Tae woo and all the other military leaders of South Korea were pretty big bastards.