12.12: The Day

Seoul, 12 December 1979. The president was killed a month and a half earlier and the country is under a caretaker administration. That night a group inside the army moves: the general running the investigation has his own superior, the army chief of staff, arrested and brings troops into the capital. On the other side are the ministry of defence and the commander responsible for the security of the capital. Over nine hours both sides counter each other by telephone, by radio and by moving units. Kim Sung-soo directs. Hwang Jung-min and Jung Woo-sung are in the cast. The narrative rests on real events; that night counts as the beginning of military rule in Korea and the years that followed are tied to it. The characters' names are changed from the real people, while the course of events keeps to the record. The film is built as a thriller; the outcome is known and the tension comes from how the decisions are made. What it shows is institutions collapsing: nobody knows whose orders to take, telephones go unanswered, and the side that hesitates loses. It was an extraordinary commercial success in Korea and the most watched film of its year. Its limit is length; it runs close to two and a half hours and the military terms and number of names make it hard to follow. Who it is for: anyone interested in political thrillers and Korean history. Who it is not for: there are many characters, it is confusing without the historical context, and the narrative takes place entirely in a world of men.