Koreansk film i den Koreanske Kirke

Filmen Shimido er planlagt å bli vist i den Koreanske Kirken lørdag, 03.12 kl. 14:00. Inngang er kr. 50kr, inkl. enkel servering. Se omtale av filmen lenger ned på siden.

Adressen: Økernv. 211 B

Filmomtale av: Shimido

On Jan. 21, 1968, a group of North Korean armed guerillas approached the back gate of Chunghwadae, ready to kill then President Park Jung Hee. The 31 highly trained infiltrators were sent by North Korea to assassinate the "absolute ruler" of the South. They were intercepted and almost all killed by the presidential guards right before they were about to burst into the gate of the presidential house.

The sole surviver Kim Shin Jo later spat out in an interview "I came here to kill Park Jung Hee and cut his neck." Shocked and furious, Park Jung Hee ordered an outright retaliation.

On a presidential order the then South Korean CIA formed a legion of commandos recruited from prisoners on death row. The same number of 31 were selected to "be killed" in the North, although they were promised by the South to be given freedom after their mission to assassinate Kim Il Sung, president of North Korea and to blow up Kim's presidential palace.

Inspired by the government's promise for their second chance in life, they gladly pledged to put their life on the line during their "hell" training on a small island called Shilmido off the port city of Incheon. Seven of them died during the appalling training but the remaining men survived to become amazing special commandos, so-called "human weapons."

However, while the so called "Unit 684" members were waiting for their mission after three years of special training, the icy South-North relations suddenly began to thaw. The end result was "The July 4th South-North Joint Declaration" on principles for peaceful unification announced in 1972 simultaneously by Pyongyang and Seoul after secret exchanges of presidential messengers.

With the dramatic improvement of bilateral relations on the peninsula, people of both Koreas were in euphoria about the "imminent" unification. And accordingly, the retaliation plan was scrapped.

As the bilateral ties between the two Koreas improved Unit 684 members on Shilmido were virtually abandoned. Their training decreased and even their food supply was cut. Finally, the government ordered "complete destruction" of Unit 684. All members were to be purged after three years of hard training.

Extremely angry and frustrated by the approaching "destruction" on Aug. 23, 1971, 24 soldiers of Unit 684 hijacked a bus in Inchoen to head toward presidential house of Chongwadae in Seoul, putting the passengers into a complete panic. In a shootout with police in Seoul, the 24 the forlorn armed deserters killed themselves by hand grenades.

The ill-fated incident was quickly covered up by the government, and was forever hidden in history until just recently. Initially, the government announced they were armed guarillas from the North. The tragedy resulted in a recent opening of a movie called Shilmido, named after training ground of the soldiers.

As in real history Shilmido depicts vividly the whole process of the disastrous incidents that happened between 1968 and 1971; why they were recruited and how they endured harsh training to become "human weapons" and finally how they were forsaken by the society.

Director Kang Woo Suk simply wants to reveal the hidden story with his 135-minute blockbuster film. In his movie Kang concludes that the tragedy is obviously ascribable to erroneous decisions by the government, which is cruel and chaotic in his prism. A whopping 10 billion won (8.4 million U.S. dollars) was poured into making the tragic film.

Released on Christmas eve, 2003, Shilmido immediately scored number one on the blockbuster charts in Korea. On the first week of the opening, over 2 million people came to see the movie, the highest opening number in nation's cinematography history. It still gathers record number of spectators from around the country after almost two months of its opening.

The movie is full of big-name actors including Ahn Sung Gi, Sul Kyung Goo, Huh Joon Ho, and Jung Jae Young. Sul Kyung Goo stars as one of the trainees whereas Ahn Sung Gi and Huh Joon Ho play as his superiors