Attack the Gas Station!

Four young men rob a petrol station. There is little money. A week later they come back to the same station; this time they do not rob it, they take it over. They shut the owner and the staff in the back room. Then they go to the pumps and start serving customers. They give petrol, take money, pick fights. As the night goes on more people arrive: a boy delivering food, a gang, the police, and in the end all the town's trouble collects there. Why the four behave as they do is told in flashbacks. Kim Sang-jin directs. Lee Sung-jae, Yu Oh-seong, Kang Seong-jin and Yoo Ji-tae are in the cast. It is a South Korean production, made in 1999. The film did large business in Korea and was among the most watched local productions of its time. The narrative takes place in one location and runs through the night. The matter it treats is anger without a source; each of the four has a reason and none of it has anything to do with robbery. The humour is bound up with the violence; the fights are cut for comedy and nobody dies. The narrative takes the state of Korean youth at the end of the nineties as its direct subject; the pressure of schooling, unemployment and family. Films in the same vein multiplied in Korean cinema afterwards. The narrative shows the police as part of the system too and does not take authority seriously. Its limit is structure; the narrative repeats, the flashbacks break the pace, and the ending is chaotic. Who it is for: viewers who like Korean comedy and films set in one place. Who it is not for: it is loud, repetitive, and the ending scattered.