GANGNAM 70/ GANGNAM BLUES
Korea, 2015, 135 minutes, Colour.
Min-ho Lee, Rae-won Kim.
Directed by Ha Yoo.
In the 21st century, the Korean film industry has made quite a number of gangster films but, with many of them, a historical and political connection. This is one of those films.
A non-Korean audience will have some trouble keeping abreast of the characters and the political background and implications. Korean audiences will be remembering and assessing their history.
The audience is introduced to 2 teenage orphans, working and scavenging in the rubbish in the city. They are squatters, feeling the cold, hungry – and their shelter is bulldozed for progress. They are gathered up by a gang leader who is looking for young men to act as thugs, going to a political meeting, upsetting, destroying, bashing. But, at the end, they are separated and cannot find each other.
Three years pass. Each young man has grown up in a different situation. On the one hand, the more quiet friend has found a home and a job with a former gangster head and his daughter. On the other hand, the other young man has been particularly successful, finding his place amongst the gangs, managing restaurants, double dealing with people. A patron takes him out to open land of the South of Seoul which has been earmarked for development and they buy up properties at low rates from the locals. The young man gets his payment in having the deeds to one of these properties.
There are also political implications, the relationship of businessman, politicians, lawyers to the respective gangs and their heads. So, the destruction of meetings, the targeting of victims, violence and murder.
The two young men eventually encounter one another, with some possibilities of collaboration, but the quiet young man taking a stance, even when his boss goes back to work for the gangs, the other continuing his headstrong and ambitious activity with the gangs. A final confrontation, symbolically, in a cinema.
1. The popularity of Korean gangster films? This film and its quality? 21st-century looking back at history of the 1970s?
2. The settings, the city of Seoul, the city of gay men? The location photography, the squalid rubbish heaps, the politics, the wealthy gangs, no clubs, work of cleaners, the vacant land, the possibilities for development? The musical score?
3. The politics of the time? The claim that this film was fictitious – but the focus on political corruption, elections and funds, property development and prosperity? The rule of the gangs?
4. The focus on the two young men, friends, orphans, working the rubbish collection together, the cold accommodation, the sudden demolition, their being evicted, wandering, rounded up the bus, primed to go into the meeting and bash and destroying? The young man sick, in the toilet? The two separated?
5. The passing of three years? The two lives and the differences? The young man and his working with Kang, his daughter, her intended marriage, Kang and the background of his gang and allegiances? A more peaceful life?
6. The contrast with the of the young man, in the gangs, immediately proving himself, stand over tactics, is a variety of jobs, managing clubs, dealing with the politicians, with a gang heads, sexual relationships, getting the property deeds, his reputation and so being used, the rich woman and the variety of deals, going with her, arguing with the farmers, buying up the land, the swindling? His getting his own reward with land deeds?
7. The rules of the gangs, their bosses, the thugs, the deals with the politicians, with the developers? The wealthy life, the dealer and the sex encounters and is being photographed? The killings? Exploitation of the land, funds for elections?
8. The two men meeting, sharing, the differences? Kang and his return to the work of the gangs? The involvement of the two men in the different ways? The confrontations? Brutality and violence? The scene in the theatre, the confrontation? Deaths? Survival?
9. The finale in the celebration of Gangnam – elegance covering corruption?
