In the past few years the UK has benefited from a number of theatrical releases of recent Korean box office movies. Sometimes, the UK release has occurred while the movie is still showing in cinemas back in Korea, indicating a certain amount of confidence on the part of the distributors to invest in a title that has not yet proven itself in the local box office. The first such almost-simultaneous release that I can think of was Tunnel back in 2016, and since then we’ve had a few others with titles such as Battleship Island and A Taxi Driver (2017) and Along With the Gods: The Last 49 Days (2018). There was a hiatus during the pandemic, and then so far this year there have been titles such as The Roundup: No Way Out, Ransomed and now 12.12: The Day.
Before we celebrate these releases as a UK-specific hallyu phenomenon, it should be pointed out that in all the above examples many other countries also benefited from the same almost-simultaneous release schedule. And the UK distribution has not exactly been ambitious: screening has been limited to fewer than ten cinemas in mainland Britain, indicating that Korean cinema is still a minority interest here.
What has been the common factor with the above movies? The main things that spring to mind are that they’ve had a high possibility of reasonable box office success (in Korea at least), featuring big name stars and plots geared towards mainstream audiences. And generally, they have indeed performed well domestically, with only Ransomed failing to generate a respectable box office.
12.12 The Day continues this trend: two major stars in Hwang Jung-min and Jung Woo-sung; and although a bloody military coup might not initially seem like a subject that would have audiences flocking to cinemas, recent Korean movies focusing on the political upheavals of the late seventies and eighties such as A Taxi Driver, 1987 and The Man Standing Next have been both critical and box office successes.
The movie’s Korean title is Seoul Spring (서울의 봄), a reference to the hopes for democracy after President Park’s 1979 assassination, and the movie tells the story of Chun Doo-hwan’s military coup which dashed those hopes. Chun was appointed to head the investigation into the assassination, and although the identity of the assassin was known, the possibility of a broader conspiracy needed to be established or ruled out. As investigator-in-chief, Chun had the ability to implicate others in a make-believe conspiracy and thus gain an advantage in pursuing his personal goals..
In the movie, Chun Doo-gwang (the Chun Doo-hwan character played by Hwang Jung-min) and other members of the military are known to have political aspirations, and these aspirations become transparent as the narrative unfolds. Against this villain is pitted an honourable opponent, Lee Tae-shin (played by Jung Woo-sung and based loosely on the lesser-known real-life character Jang Tae-wan): a soldier through and through who has no interest in politics at all. Lee is in charge of the Capital Defence Garrison, a post which places him in the front line of protecting Seoul against military units that threaten it – including those led by a rebellious general.
Although every viewer will know in outline who will be the victor in the events covered in the movie, the interest and excitement comes in a number of ways. First, we enjoy Hwang Jung-min’s skill at portraying the future military dictator, and we admire the skills of the make-up department in giving him the receding hairline and flared nostrils. We then get to examine the motivations of those who decide to stick with Chun: whether it is a desire for status in a post-coup world, recognition of Chun’s undoubted leadership qualities, rational calculation of likelihood of success, or the power of the oaths sworn by members of the secretive Hanahoe organisation of Chun’s fellow alumni of the military academy.
Most of all, though, we enjoy the intricacies of the near real-time portrayal of the tense events of the night of 12 December 1979. Chun’s plan to arrest the army chief of staff and seize control of the army for himself has a number of interdependent components and it’s riveting to watch Hwang / Chun in action as he responds to all the unplanned obstacles that constantly threaten his success over the course of those few hours. Not the least of these obstacles is of course the hugely competent Lee Tae-shin, who has long been suspicious of Chun’s ambitions, but who ultimately is unable to stem the tidal forces lined up on the side of Chun. At one point, in a scene that makes us think of Tank Man in Tiananmen Square, Lee stands alone on one of the Han River bridges to block the path of a military unit advancing on the capital in support of Chun. These and other heroics gladden the heart, but we know that ultimately they are doomed to failure.
At time of writing, 12.12: The Day was on its way to 10 million admissions in Korea. It was doing well enough in London to be extended into a third week (until 28 December) – which will bring us to the release of the next Korean blockbuster, the final episode in the Lee Sun-shin trilogy, on 29 December. Personally, if I had the time I’d go watch 12.12 again. I’ll probably go to see Noryang nonetheless, but what I really hope is that Alienoid 2 gets a UK release.