Agreed, I think the "car chase" is the part everyone feels was a bit superfluous and much like it had to tick the formulaic boxes toward the end to make box office. But if you make those concessions to form it's a picture with some great moments and definitely a story worth telling. Maybe especially for me as a German citizen, and then watching the original Tagesschau clip (the news hour the footage surfaced in) after getting home from theaters, it really resonated a lot.
1987 - I liked it, but I'd say it was more on the nose and lacks Song Kang-ho's acting chops :). Still, around the time I watched it I often worked from a café across from gates of Yonsei Univ., which figure prominently in this real-world tale so it still had an impact on me.
The other movie I really liked that's loosely connected to the era and the student uprisings was "Sunny". The comedy-drama tone of that one is a super close match to some German films processing the end of the East German regime and I felt really connected to that film.
Do you have a link to the original Tagesschau clip featuring the Gwangju footage? I could only find one from a day or two before, featuring only footage from Seoul.
1987 - I liked it, but I'd say it was more on the nose and lacks Song Kang-ho's acting chops :). Still, around the time I watched it I often worked from a café across from gates of Yonsei Univ., which figure prominently in this real-world tale so it still had an impact on me.
The other movie I really liked that's loosely connected to the era and the student uprisings was "Sunny". The comedy-drama tone of that one is a super close match to some German films processing the end of the East German regime and I felt really connected to that film.