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He has far less screen time than Director Kim, the real star of the story, and in half of that screen time he is a shrouded corpse. First released February 2005. Sign up here. The gallery of Park's cronies and sycophants are presented as buffoons, but as the violence starts, the narrative thread gets hopelessly tangled. Don't have an account? onscreen assassination of a certain North Korean leader, Review: Love Impossible (South Korea, 2003), Review: Gangnam Blues (South Korea, 2015), Review: A Bittersweet Life (South Korea, 2005). By creating an account, you agree to the Privacy Policy

Beautiful camera and sound work, excellent pacing, strong acting by the leads, and set in a slighty ironic-black-comic mood entirely appropriate to the absurd-yet-entirely-serious circumstances. Want more? At first a court censored three minutes and fifty seconds of the film and ordered the producers to pay Park’s only son ₩100,000; however, after two appeals both the censorship and fine were reversed, although the filmmakers were ordered to insert a title explaining that the film was purely fictional. While without Park Chung-hee there would be no President’s Last Bang, the President has a rather unremarkable portrayal in the film. Although the onscreen assassination of a certain North Korean leader has dominated recent headlines, South Korea is actually in the lead for seeing its heads of state killed off on film. This incident is the subject of The President’s Last Bang; the film centers around the hours right before and after the assassination as seen primarily through the eyes of KCIA Director Kim (Baek Yun-shik), his lieutenant Chief Agent Ju (Han suk-kyu), and a trot singer (Kim Yoon-ah) and college student (Jo Eun-ji) brought in to be President Park’s (Song Jae-ho) female company. Park has no agency in the film, but on the other hand, perhaps the agency that other characters like Director Kim appear to have is just an illusion as well.

A look at the life of President Park Chung-hee and the events leading up to his assassination. The film seizes upon these uncertainties and accentuates them with perfect dashes of dark humor. Thus, it’s fair to say that Park’s legacy looms large on Korean political stage: in fact, South Korea’s current president is his oldest daughter, Park Geun-hye. One of the best movies I've seen all year. On that day, Kim Jae-kyu, Director of the KCIA (which Park had created in the semi-mold of the American CIA to prevent counter-coups and suppress dissidents), fatally shot Park at a small banquet in Seoul. If anything, this adds to the movie’s value, as it is quite ironic to see who is supposed to be Korea’s most powerful man either dead or cuddling affectionately with the two female companions he receives for the banquet. It's 1979, democracy has broken down, the chief administrator has become an incorrigible lech, and some of his most trusted staffers are plotting to … In the end it's probably best to say, glad I saw it, but not sure I got the most out of the experience. Although he committed numerous human rights abuses, Park is also widely credited with launching South Korea’s modern economic miracle and strengthening the country’s position against North Korea. The President's Last Bang movie reviews & Metacritic score: On October 26th, 1979, the president of South Korea was assassinated at his own dinner table by the head of the KCIA. and the Terms and Policies, Writer-director Im Sang Soo's coolly stylized political satire doesn't provide a lot of answers, unfortunately, but it does show how the future of a nation might turn on a few drunken insults thrown around at a high-level dinner party. This meticulously well-made picture is disarmingly funny at times - not least during the ballet of bloody absurdity that is the assassination itself - but also subdued and straight-faced, with one eye planted on 1979 and the other on the violent student demonstrations looming in the distance. Mid-Session Review FY 2021 A Budget for America's Future - President's Budget FY 2021 Major Savings and Reforms Analytical Perspectives Appendix Historical Please enter your email address and we will email you a new password.