
Excavator
★ 7.6 · 2017 · 92m · Drama
20 years after discharge from the army and now an excavator driver, a former paratrooper who had been mobilized to suppress the May 18th Democratic Uprising in Korea in 1980, happens to find a skull in the ground one day. Driving his excavator, he pays visits to his former superiors one by one and realizes they were all both assailants and victims of the times.
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The citizens of Gwangju lead a relatively peaceful life, until one day the military takes over the city, accusing the residents of conspiracy and claiming that they are communist sympathisers preparing a revolution against the current government. Seeing as the soldiers beat defenceless people, mainly students, to death, the citizens are in for retaliation and form a militia.
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2004 · ★ 7.1
A well-meaning but politically naive barber gets pulled into the inner circle of the South Korean dictator Park Chung-Hee, with rather baleful consequences for his hapless family. This sharp political satire covers roughly twenty years in South Korean political history, from the viewpoint of the barber's son.
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The Old Garden
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After the Gwangju Democratization Movement is terminated by brute force, Jong Soo runs from the authorities and goes to Dongducheon in search of Tae Ho, an older neighbor from his hometown. He is a student at Jeonnam University and a night school teacher who is on the run because of his involvement in the Gwangju Movement.
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When his mother goes missing, Lee Ho-yeon sets out to search for her. In the course of that journey, he discovers his parents' pasts during the democracy protests of the 1980s when student activists rose up against the repressive Chun Doo-hwan regime. Reading a book written by his mother, Ho-yeon uncovers a story of hope, love and betrayal, and struggles to understand painful secrets that have been hidden away for thirty years.
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