Miss Understanding from Top Cinema (Original by topcinema, reproduction is strictly prohibited)
First the movie king committed suicide, and then the politician was assassinated.
The news in South Korea these days is more sensational than the last.
Just a few days after the movie "Parasite" actor Lee Sun-kyun (pictured above) committed suicide, on January 2, Lee Jae-myung, the leader of South Korea's largest opposition party, was assassinated while visiting Busan (pictured below) - he was used by a man born in 1957. The knife injured a vein in the neck.
This is not the first assassination in South Korean politics. The most sensational one was the assassination of Park Chung-hee, the then President of South Korea, in 1979.
This incident was made into a movie by South Korea in 2020, called "Ministers of Nanshan".
has a Douban score of 8.2. It is called "a historical film and a biopic, a political film and a thriller". Many people lamented that "Korean movies really dare to make anything."
Not only did the film dare to be filmed, it also became a box office hit and a well-received Korean film at the time. It won the 41st Korean Film Blue Dragon Award for Best Film. The leading actor Lee Byung-hun won the 14th Asian Film Awards Best Actor and Best Film for this film. Best Actor at the 56th Baeksang Arts Awards.
In fact, because of the subject matter and the main creative lineup, when the news of the initial filming of "Ministers of Nanshan" came out, some people had already listed it as the anticipated movie of the year.
The film is adapted from the documentary work "Ministers of Namsan" of the same name by Korean journalist Kim Chung-sik, who has won the Korean Journalism Award twice.
This work was published in the Dong-A Ilbo for 2 years and 2 months since 1990. It sold 520,000 copies in South Korea and Japan, setting a best-selling record for non-fiction novels. When it was adapted into a movie, Kim Chung-sik served as the film director. One of the screenwriters.
The background of the story is 1979. In October of that year, Park Chung-hee, the then President of South Korea, was assassinated by Kim Jae-gyu, the South Korean Central Intelligence Minister who was known as the second most powerful person at the time. At that time, Park Chung-hee was eating at Kim Jae-kyu's place and was shot dead by Kim Jae-kyu.
The movie "Ministers of Nanshan" only excerpts a part of the documentary work, telling the story of the 40 days before the incident, trying to present the transformation process from a loyalist to an assassin from a broader perspective.
But to a certain extent, it is fictional: the names of the characters in the movie have been changed, and reasonable imagination has been incorporated into some plots.
The director of the film is Woo Min-ho. His previous two popular works "The Insider" (starring Lee Byung-hun) and "The King of Narcotics" (starring Song Kang-ho), plus this one, are called the "Desire Trilogy" ".
The leading actors of "Ministers of Namsan" are Korean talents with box office appeal and first-class acting skills.
Especially the two leading actors, one is Lee Byung-hun, who has won multiple actor titles with "The Insider", and this time he collaborates with director Woo Min-ho again.
The other one is Lee Sung Min, a powerful actor who has also won multiple Best Actor titles.
Two great movie stars have great roles in the film. This time, one plays the role of Kim Kyu-pyeong, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency of South Korea, and the other plays the president of South Korea. Both of them project reality.
Lee Byung-hun acted in this movie and played a controversial figure, which put him under a lot of pressure. He said:
"I think this movie is taking a risk by daring to define a story that has not reached a conclusion in history. It is based on The incident has penetrated people's hearts through the lens of the movie, showing people's psychology, conflicts and emotions."
In addition, the film also has Korean actor Lee Hee-jun playing the key guard captain Kwak Sang-chuan, and the corresponding character of this role is Cha Ji-cheol.
In order to be as close to the character's prototype as possible, Lee Hee-jun, who was originally a niche actor, sacrificed his image for the role and gained 25 pounds.
In this group photo, the military character standing next to Lee Hee-joon is the corresponding character Chun Doo-hwan, played by Seo Hyun-woo, who has appeared in "Sowon", "Tunnel" and "Veteran".
To understand the complicated relationships and political background of this movie, we must first talk about the assassination of South Korean President Park Chung-hee that occurred on October 26, 1979.
On the evening of October 26, 1979, the then South Korean President Park Chung-hee led his presidential guard captain Cha Ji-cheol to the then South Korean Central Intelligence Agency to have dinner with Minister Kim Jae-gyu.
Originally, Park wanted to take this opportunity to resolve the conflict between Kim Jae-kyu and Cha Ji-cheol, but something unpleasant happened midway. Kim Jae-kyu then shot the two people with a gun, resulting in their death, leading to a sensational assassination of the president.
Kim Jae-gyu is known as the "King of Secret Agents" in South Korea. He is not only Park Chung-hee's classmate, but also one of Park Chung-hee's confidants. After Park Chung-hee became president, he served as the Minister of Intelligence and was once the number two figure.
But after that, Cha Zhiche gradually gained more trust from Park, and the two gradually developed a grudge against each other, paving the way for the subsequent assassination.
In 1980, the assassin Kim Jae Kyu was hanged and executed by the Chun Doo Hwan government.
In the movie "Ministers of Namsan", it not only involves the assassination of the president, but also involves the exiled former South Korean Central Intelligence Minister Kim Hyung-wook, who "bizarrely disappeared" in Paris, France in 1979.
This is also another real event that the film focuses on. The corresponding character in the
film is Park, the former Minister of Central Intelligence of Korea, played by the Korean heavyweight acting actor, Guo Duyuan (also translated as Guo Doyuan). He has appeared in "The Defender", "Yellow Sea", "The Cry" and "Iron Rain" and is a familiar face in Korean movies.
In 2005, some Korean media reported that Kim Hyung Wook was probably kidnapped by the assassination team of the Central Intelligence Agency and was thrown into a crusher at a chicken farm in the suburbs of Paris, France, and killed.
According to reports, Lee, who claims to be the leader of the assassination team, provided the above testimony. According to the testimony, the specific assassination was carried out by Kwak and two others. They used actress Choi to lure Kim Hyung-wook and then carried out the assassination.
The disappearance of Kim Hyung-wook is still a mystery, but the movie "Ministers of Namsan" has the same implications as in the news reports. Some viewers left a message saying: "When I saw Minister Park being thrown into a concrete mixer truck, , I woke up with a thrill."
Political films have always been one of the mainstream creative themes of Korean movies, and various Korean political past events are constantly being put on the big screen.
The assassination of Lee Jae-myung that just happened, I wonder if it will be made into a movie by Koreans in the future?
