There is a foot chase in the night that is superbly choreographed, culminating in a gut-wrenching moment. His handling of suspense is crisp and fresh. Hun Jang’s direction is assured and clear.
It is a statement with some merit because after seeing Song in it, I just couldn’t see another actor playing his role. In an interview, director Hun Jang said he wouldn’t have made the film if Song won’t play the main role. Him finally wising up to the blatant political machinations and his political awakening is persuasively arresting. Thoughtful, sincere, Song could convey so much in a flurry of emotions that doesn’t cross into the maudlin. Instantly relatable in an everyday man sort of way, Song’s performance here is one of the best I have seen this year. He has the uncanny ability to make a simple role more complex than it deserves to be and he is fascinatingly compelling. I first saw him in Memories of Murder (2003) and since then he has been my favourite Korean actor. The grace notes of the screenplay are not drowned out by plot machinations and emotional manipulations, making this a refreshing experience. The succinct screenplay just gets down to the nitty gritty of Ground Zero and examine it mainly through the point of view of a taxi driver who hates street demonstrations for ruining his livelihood. There isn’t a need to churn out yet again the events leading to the massacre and to shout jingoistic slogans. The Gwangju Uprising is the subject of so many films and drama serials that the wrong and right of it has been seared into probably every Korean person. Another strength of the film is how it doesn’t try to do too much. Herein lies one of its beauty – the change in tone from a blithesome spirit to an utter heart-wrencher is deftly handled, all in the time of a gun-shot. The trailer seems to suggest it is a light-hearted movie, it isn’t.
#Themes in a taxi driver 2017 movie#
Hun Jang’s A Taxi Driver is in this category and it is the standout Korean movie for me this year. The really good ones possess something extraordinary that engage me totally and stop my mind from seeing how the wheels are turning. I may not be able to guess the surprises, but I can see behind an invisible screen how Korean cinema teases me into building the narratives through its distinctive stylistics. I watch a lot of Korean cinema and inadvertently I can see how the narrative typically unfolds to its conclusion. As time passes the situation grows more and more serious, and Man-Seob keeps thinking of his young daughter at home all alone.
But Peter ignores him, and with the help of a university student Jae-sik (Ryu Jun-Yeol) and a Gwangju taxi driver named Hwang Tae-Sul (Yoo Hae-jJn), begins shooting with his news camera. Man-Seob, alarmed by the danger in the air, pleads with Peter to go quickly back to Seoul. There they encounter students and ordinary citizens taking part in large-scale demonstrations against the government. Although stopped by police roadblocks at the edge of Gwangju, Man-Seob is desperate to earn his taxi fare, and eventually manages to find a way into the city. Without stopping to ask the details, he picks up the German reporter Peter Hinzpeter (Thomas Kretschmann) and sets off along the highway. If he drives a foreign passenger from Seoul down to Gwangju and back again before the curfew, he’ll be paid the unthinkable sum of 100,000 won – enough to cover several months of unpaid rent. A Seoul taxi driver named Man-Seob (Song Kang-Ho) comes across an offer too good to be true. This happens to be South Korea’s representative for the Best Foreign Language Film at next year’s Oscars. A Taxi Driver is yet another look at the red blob and tells a heroic story from another angle. Since then I have seen a few films that addressed those dark days in Korean history, most recently in the outstanding Peppermint Candy (1999). I immediately followed that up with another one of her novels, Human Acts, which tells the story of the infamous 1980 Gwangju Uprising in a devastating and haunting manner. The passenger got off the taxi and the taxi driver went to Hotel Elory hurriedly.The best book I read last year was Hang Kang’s The Vegetarian, winner of the Man Booker International Prize 2017. He talks about his problem with his daughter. He talks about his observations about youth and prostitution. Plot A taxi driver rides with a female teacher passenger. She is best known for her collection of short stories Little Ironies: Short Stories of Singapore and Or Else, The Lightning God and Other Stories.
She has won national and regional book prizes for her literary li terary contributions. “Ang Istorya ng Taxi Driver” By Catherine Lim
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