The Kwangju Uprising Reflected in the Movie A Taxi Driver

下面为大家整理一篇优秀的assignment代写范文- The Kwangju Uprising Reflected in the Movie A Taxi Driver，供大家参考学习，这篇论文讨论了电影《逆权司机》中的光州起义。电影《逆权司机》改编自德国ARD记者Jurgen Hinzpeter去光州拍摄的真实故事，讲述了政府利用军队攻击人民，殴打和杀害人民的罪行。Jurgen Hinzpeter坚持拍摄由政府导演的大屠杀，并设法将其实施并传播开来。在电影中，彼得在出租车司机的帮助下潜入光州，对大规模的示威活动进行了调查。这部电影激发了一种认识和学习这段历史的冲动和反思，并提供了一种渴望，让人们了解暴政是如何停止的，民主是如何通过牺牲实现的。

After decades of economic growth and slowly loosening political repression in Asia resulting in raised social expectations, after the same decades of direct and indirect American cultural and political influence, and after national and international political tensions began to decline after the Cold War peaked in the 1960s and 1970s, a wave of popular and student movements pressing for democracy and human rights began to sweep Asia in the 1980s. This wave of democratization would eventually shake Chinese, Japanese, and South Korean societies. The Kwangju Uprising was the violent climax of South Korea’s democracy movements, and after the resultant political liberalizations later in the decade, its events have been reviewed in film and popular culture numerous times. This paper analyzes the Kwangju Uprising’s historical context as reflected in the movie A Taxi Driver (Jang Hoon, 2017) and provides both domestic and international points of view through a series of mass media research.

Historical Background and Achievement of the Kwangju Uprising

The Kwangju Uprising started in May 1980, when students from all over South Korea marched and protested for the abolition of Martial Law and the promotion of democracy. A Taxi Driver did a great job on representing the tense atmosphere in the part before the charters went to Kwangju, as well as the general apathy and materialism of the average South Korean, represented by Song Kang-ho’s character Mr. Kim Man-seob, the eponymous taxi driver. At the beginning, Mr. Kim was having a normal day as a taxi driver in Seoul, but the events he went through shook his world and completely transformed him as a person, though he fell into it only reluctantly and accidentally. Some students’ protests caused a traffic jam,and when Kim drove back he saw policemen chasing the students and throwing tear gas at them. He also heard gun shots and saw banners against the Martial Law (00:04:18). The movie also showed some political background and cultural influence in a variety of ways. The radio reported the government’s order of the prohibition of political activities of artists, the suspension of classes of college students, and banning of demonstrations or strikes (00:11:21). In addition, from the conversation between Peter and his coworkers/friends, we learned that Kim Dae-Jung was arrested, a longtime opposition leader based in Korea’s traditionally restive southwest region (Robinson, 2007); Kim Young-Sam was also put under house arrest at the time. When Kim and Peter arrived Kwangju, they were initially met with an abandoned city where violence had clearly taken place, but after being found by a group of students on the bus singing patriotic folk tunes, they were strongly welcomed and were invigorated by signs that people from Seoul and the outside world would be able to tell their stories. It showed the desire of the students to spread the news to the world and seek for help and support.

The student movements were clearly strongly influenced by international popular culture and political thought, but they were largely using these as raw ingredients to be reconstructed organically into their own political movement, rather than blindly copying cultural or political ideology from the American hegemon, which supports Kim and Shin’s ideas of musical and cultural influences as not being unidirectional (2010). Jae-sik, the naive student in the film, is largely seeking for basic human dignity rather than any specifically stated political goals, and while his taste in clothes and his desire to become a rock star would seem to be westernized, the songs that he and his classmates engage in are largely patriotic Korean folk songs and the songs he himself sings in his family setting are hardly risqué. A desire for human dignity and a basic attitude of rebelliousness may have been transmitted by the American occupation, but little else is evident.

What we did not see from the movie is, in the next few days, thousand of soldiers entered the city driving tanks. Despite the people blocking the road, the tanks still ran over their bodies unscrupulously and made it into the city. At the same time, the soldiers opened fire to the people for many times and killed dozens of people. Eventually, the troops dismissed the crowd and occupied the government office building again, and brutally suppressed this democratic movement. The official body count was over 500, and some human rights groups argued the death roll was over 2,000 (Goodman & Gonzalez, 2005).

After the horrible massacre, the South Korean people were not deterred. Instead, they persevered in continuing their struggle for years. In June 1987, millions of people embarked on the streets of Seoul and demanded democracy. The military was no longer able to suppress the movement (Flower, 1999). Under the enormous pressure, the government was forced to accept the plan of constitutional reform. South Korea could be democratized and is now ranked among the most advanced modern civilized nations; the Kwangju Uprising played a significant role as the bloody foundation stone in the construction of the modern South Korean democracy.

Mass Media Responses

The Kwangju Uprising attracted a wide array of international attention, once reporting came out of the blockaded city. However, different parties in South Korea tried to strictly block the outflow of truth at the time. Some local journalists sneaked out to the printing office of their newspaper and tried to publish the facts to the public. But the manager of the newspaper beat them up and smashed the machines. Meanwhile, fake death roll was spreading through TV news and the press was telling a completely opposite story, which claimed the students as mobs, killing innocent soldiers (01:07:15 - 01:09:06). The citizens outside of Kwangju have absolutely no idea what was happening and only discussing it as lunchtime gossip; life went on as normal and they generally criticized the students as unruly thugs who did not appreciate their privileges or pursue their educational duties (01:31:07).

The Significance and Influence of the Movie

This movie was adapted from the true story of German ARD reporter Jürgen Hinzpeter went to Kwangju and filmed the government’s crime of using troops against people, as well as beating and killing them. Hinzpeter insisted on filming the bloodbath directed by the government and managed to carry it out and spread it. In the movie, Peter dived into Kwangju with the help of Kim and conducted an investigation on the large-scale demonstrations.

After the broadcast, the movie has received countless responses.  This is not a story of South Korea; it is a story of mankind. The movie motivates an impulse and reflection to recognize and learn this history and provides a desire to establish an insight of how tyranny stopped and how democratization occurred with sacrifice.

Although the film was not released in Mainland China, it triggered a warm concern and discussion online. Since the movie page was established on the main file, critic site Douban in August, over 30,000 netizens viewed it and the average of the movie is as high as 9.1 out of 10. Many comments complimented the courage of South Korea to face their history. Mainland China has experienced similar democratic movement in 1989, the Tiananmen Square Massacre, which is still strictly forbidding to mention in China. Some netizens spoke of it on the movie page but most of them got deleted very soon. At around 9:10 on October 3, the whole movie page was removed from Douban (Yu, 2017).

A taxi driver chose an unused and unique 'outsider' perspective, which is also the closest to the audience. It drags the audience into the 1980s through the non-sensational, straightforward and calm portrayal. It is undoubtedly more objective to show the Kwangju Uprising through the perspective of an outsider. Kim did not understand politics, just like most of us, who are struggling in the livelihood of ourselves. However, through his changes, we also gained an indirect chance to experience history as we gradually approaching the truth.

Conclusion

A Taxi Driver did an excellent job to represent the historical context of the Kwangju Uprising, and it is absolutely a great movie to watch. Political revolution takes blood but the use of violence and military force by the government on unarmed people is totally unacceptable. Many countries have paid very expensive prices on the path of pursuing democracy but some are not fortunate enough to succeed. It is almost natural for me to associate the Kwangju Uprising to the Tiananmen Square Massacre. However, China remains a dictatorship under the communist regimes and the Chinese Communist Party has been cracking down free expression all over the nation. In the end of the movie, it shows the modernized city of Seoul in 2003. The prosperity and peace now in South Korea comes from continuous fighting and the awareness and determination of the people and the government. There is a famous quote in the Old Book of Tang says that history reflects thriving and depression, which implies how the world is shaped by history. More importantly, history offers guidance for the future.

Limitation and Prospect

Due to language barriers, this paper does not show enough supportive information or comments on German or Korean media, which I believe would really contribute to the topic.

For my future research, I would love to do some comparative study on the democracy movements in China and South Korea.

References

A Taxi Driver. YouTube Movies. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PphYaPknrWc

Published on Nov 6, 2017.

Amy Goodman & Juan Gonzalez. (2005). 25 Years Ago: The Kwangju Massacre in South Korea. Democracy Now, May 18.

Michael E. Robinson. (2007). Korea’s twentieth-century odyssey: a short history. University of Hawaii Press, April 30.

James Flower. (1999). The United States and South Korean Democratization. Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 114, No. 2.

Pil Ho Kim & Hyunjoon Shin. (2010). The north of “Rok”: cultural imperialism, nationalism, and the globalization of Rock Music in South Korea, 1964-1975. Duke University Press.

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