The Man Standing Next (2020)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2020
	Director: Min-ho Woo
	Actors: Byung-hun Lee (I Saw the Devil, G. I. Joe 1-2, Ashfall, A Bittersweet Life), Sung-min Lee, Do-won Kwak
	Country: ROK
	Genre: Drama, Thriller
	Conditions of visioning: 17.07.2020, VOD, 32" TV-screen
Synopsis: The weeks leading to the assassination of South-Korean dictator Park Chung-hee in 1979.
Review: Interesting to watch this more recent take at the same events as depicted in the acclaimed 2005 satire The President's Last Bang. Both were shown at the Far East Film Festival 2020. This one is more a cold fact-telling story giving more background on the motives for the assassination and cutting short right after it, so in a sense it is complementary to the other which was focusing on the few hours before the event and in the aftermath. The tone is of course totally different and I found that the satirical one of the The President's Last Bang makes a much more interesting movie. The characters are not as likeable or relatable in this one. For example the president is depicted in the other movie as old, lonely and in search for female company, less interested by the state's affairs. In this movie he is depicted more seriously and as you would expected from a ruthless military dictator. There is no doubt that The Man Standing Next is very well shot, including scenes abroad or with foreigners which gives it a larger scope. And it stars the Korean actor most famous outside of Korea: Byung-hun Lee, internationally known since his role as Storm Shadow in G. I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, as the T1000 in Terminator Genisys or his role in The Magnificent Seven. Asian Film Festival goers would know him since A Bittersweet Life, JSA, Three... Extremes, The Good the Bad the Weird, I Saw the Devil or the recent Ashfall. A movie well done but not very exciting. If you watch only one of the two, it should definitely be The President's Last Bang.
Rating: 5 /10