A Taxi Driver (2017)

November 6, 2024 10:34 AM

[Trailer] A widowed father and taxi driver drives a German reporter from Seoul to Gwangju to cover the 1980 uprising, and soon finds himself regretting his decision after being caught in the violence around him.

Among my favorite South Korean movies, and one of the films that opened my eyes to South Korean cinema beyond genre flicks. Not that I don't still love those. It stars the great Song Kang-ho (Parasite, Joint Security Area) and is based loosely on a true story. It's also a powerful personal story about recognizing the need for action.

It's available on Kanopy and Hoopla, for those with US library cards, and also several of the free streamers with ads, including Amazon's Freevee.

posted by Bryant (2 comments total)

I really liked how it showed like, just over the hill there could be a city under violent suppression. The cops and army are killing people over there, but if you escape you can just sit down and have an ice cream at a pleasant store as the rest of the country blithely carries on.

Also the concern the police had over the student's body seemed very quaint to me, which was kind of terrifying.
posted by fleacircus at 6:25 AM on November 7

Yeah. It's 1980 -- the world works differently today, for both better and worse -- but that effective isolation and information control was chilling.
posted by Bryant at 2:57 PM on November 7