The President's Last Bang (2005)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2005
	Director: Sang-soo Im
	Actors: Suk-kyu Han, Yun-shik Baek, Jae-ho Song
	Country: ROK
	Genre: Thriller, Black Comedy
	Conditions of visioning: 01.07.2020, FEFF2020, 14" computer screen
Synopsis: The hours around the assassination of South-Korean dictator Park Chung-hee in 1979 are filled with disappointment, betrayal and nonsense.
Review: A restored version of this movie was presented at the Far East Film Festival, partly as comparison with the most recently released The Man Standing Next which deals with the same events although in a different genre, more Action political Thriller than Black Comedy. This movie was originally presented at the Cannes Festival at a time when the incursion of Asian Cinema in Europe was still timid, even though the FEFF had started campaigning for it years prior and JoRafCinema would visit it for the first time that same year. And I understand how it could have made an impression at Cannes: it has qualities that were probably unexpected for a South Korean movie at the time: well shot, good-looking, a clear story well introduced even for non-Koreans, and most importantly a Satirical tone which the Cinema Elite presiding at Cannes would appreciate and like to promote. It had everything to be a success. I did not know much about this part of History, and by reading the Wikipedia entry after watching the movie, it seems like all the known facts are reproduced in the movie (although the source doesn't seem fully reliable). But again, beyond a simple story of what happened, the most important in this movie is the satire. I don't use that word very often, and haven't read a book or watched a movie that fits this description in a while, but The President's Last Bang seems like a textbook example. None of the characters are presented seriously like you would expect from their important political function. they look more like normal people or even teenagers fooling around. Real kudos to the film-makers for capturing such a tone and be consistent with it throughout the whole movie. Not boring for a moment, easy to follow and filled with details to make you smile in a corner (like the usual Korean aggression of shin-kicking). And when the movie looks a bit more confused, it reflects the events (today, still no one knows the real motivation of the killer). At the end of the movie, the cold reminder of the real fate of the characters involved makes you cringe, yet another proof that the movie hit the mark.
Rating: 8 /10