26 Years

From left to right: Joo-Ahn, head of private security firm; Mi-Jin, sports shooter; Jin-Bae, gangster and Gap-Sae, businessman.

Short summary of the movie: A sports shooter, gangster, cop, head of a private security firm and a businessman gather together to assassinate the orchestrator of the 1980 Gwangju massacre. All have their own motives to kill him.

I'm not doing any sort of review that explains the whole premise and plot etc, I'm just voicing my opinions. For this, I might as well add that there might be spoilers.

This movie broke me. It tore my heart out of my chest and pulled all the strings to torture me further. It was beautiful, immersive and tragic. I loved every bit of it and it yanked at my tear ducts. I was really emotionally wounded after this movie. I just felt like I should sit there and let everything that happened sink in.

In the beginning, they constructed an animation of the massacre and what these five people traumatically had to go through during that time. It was beautifully done in an artistic way and I liked how they softened the visuals (I presume that it was to soften the blow it may take on the actual survivors of the incident).

When they tied the people together, and had them work together, had their histories shown as their motives and their wounds open to hear the orchestrator living lavishly without guilt, it made me feel deeply for the characters and built my hatred for the orchestrator. I think that’s what was so great about this movie, it was immersive.

I’ll make the point that I wasn’t immersed in the beginning. I thought it would just be a movie that’d help me sleep at night, just a regular movie that might have casualties but nothing serious. Man was I dead wrong. I couldn’t take my eyes off the screen and my heart was racing whenever they did anything. I just wanted them to live, and I didn’t think I’d attach myself so easily to a film.

Mi-Jin

I grew fond of the group, working together innocently and bravely to take this man down. It  seemed really fun, and I always got a rush for bad-ass films, but this was on another level. I thought to myself how genius has the writer of the script been to pull at my heart strings like I’m a guitar.

Jin-Bae & Mi-Jin's growing relationship

When the shooter (Mi-Jin) and the gangster (Jin-Bae) formed a close relationship with one another, through the comfort of tragic events, it was the most moving feeling. In their own way, they developed subtle liking, both knowing what they were risking to avenge their trauma. I wanted them to live.

Gap-Sae holding Joo-Ahn for dear life

I was torn apart when one by one, they died. One by one, fighting for their life, fighting for their trauma, they died before they could take their revenge. It was more than just hurt. I was angry that they couldn’t take revenge on that man, I was sad they died before they could be proud of what they were sacrificing.

It was a rush watching, anticipating what would happen next. I was on the edge of my seat waiting, biting my fist, hoping it would be a good ending. Hoping something would come out of this. To my dismay, it ended with a gunshot, and at the time I was hopeful it all ended. All my hurt during the movie finally ended with that man dead, and the credits rolled. Until a car passed by, the same car that the man rode in

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I read up on a few other bloggers, even Korean ones, whom were obviously more educated than I am about the history of the Gwangju massacre. Some were really disappointed, the film did not do the massacre justice, and the loosely planned assassination wasn’t impressing to them. But I’m not educated in these things. These are merely my opinions based solely on the movie, and my perspective of how things played out. I was impressed by the cinematography, the clear emotion of the actors as well as the script.

I will address however that the planning of the assassination was loose, clumsy and nothing really showed in what they would do to this man, but they did show that they at least checked the perimeters, knowing that there was tight security. I love that part of the movie, when they figure out what to do by weighing what they already know, checking perimeters, doing backgrounds and then coming up with an amazing plan. Nevertheless it was still an enjoyable movie.

10/10, should watch with tissues, or if you want something to really pull at the heart strings. A tear-jerking gorgeous film.