The President's Last Bang

Im Sang-soo's 2005 South Korean film describes the night of 26 October 1979. President Park Chung-hee, who had ruled the country for eighteen years, was shot during a dinner by his own director of intelligence. The film presents that night not as heroism or tragedy but as a scattered and absurd event: the plan is half made, the killers do not know what to do next, a fight breaks out while the body is being moved, and for several hours the state does not know whose hands it is in. That choice provoked a large reaction in Korea and a lawsuit followed; the court ordered archive footage removed from the film. The register is black comedy and it defends none of its characters. Who it's for: viewers who like political satire and Korean cinema. Who it's not for: anyone wanting to learn about the historical event; the film does not inform, it interprets.