NATIONAL SECURITY

DATABASE
Archive

Archive

DATABASE

NATIONAL SECURITY

Oct 15, 2019

Writer by Pierce Conran
View624

2012 | 106 MIN | Drama

DIRECTOR CHUNG Ji-young

CAST PARK Won-sang, LEE Gyoung-young, DONG Bang-woo, KIM Eui-sung

RELEASE DATE November 22, 2012

CONTACT M-Line Distribution

TEL +82 2 796 2427

FAX +82 2 796 2429

EMAIL sales@mline-distribution.com

13 years after his film Naked Being (1998), director CHUNG Ji-young, known for politically-themed titles such as North Korean Partisan In South Korea (1990), White Badge (1992) and Life Of Hollywood Kid (1994), made a sensational return to cinemas when he premiered the trial drama Unbowed at the Busan International Film Festival in 2011. The film proved to be both a critical and commercial smash, and welcomed 3.46 million viewers to cinemas in early 2012. The film was also a scathing political and social commentary which demonstrated that Director CHUNG had lost none of his bite. Yet few could anticipate that the filmmaker would go on to release his most ferocious film just a few months later.

Featuring PARK Won-sang in the lead, AHN Sung-ki’s co-star in Unbowed, and traveling back to the dark days of the mid-1980s, during the CHUN Doo-hwan administration, National Security premiered as a gala presentation in Busan in 2012, immediately drawing strong responses.

In the film, PARK plays the real-life figure KIM Jong-tae, who was taken from his home before his helpless family’s eyes by national security forces in 1985. He was brought to an infamous complex in the Namyoung neighborhood in Central Seoul and, over the course of 22 days, was submitted to constant physical and psychological torture. The main inflictor of his abuse was LEE Doo-han (LEE Gyoung-young), an expert in interrogations and torture who never felt any remorse for what he put his victims through. 20 years later, KIM has become a minister and travels to prison to meet his former tormentor.

While Unbowed was praised for its pointed critiques of society, it seems positively lightweight beside National Security, a film that dispenses with levity and spends most of its running time within a torture chamber.

Films like A Taxi Driver (2017) and 1987: When the Day Comes (2017) successfully mined the protests and behind-the-scenes torture that took place in the 1980s, and became significant commercial hits, but it wasn’t a long time ago that those subjects were considered too taboo for local audiences. It took films like National Security, which proved too bitter a pill to swallow for local viewers, to pave the way and embolden filmmakers to explore the period in more detail.

PARK, a veteran character actor known for supporting roles in films like YIM Soon-rye’s Waikiki Brothers (2001) and who had racked up over 40 credits by 2012 was outstanding as KIM Jong-tae in a what was surely an extremely demanding role that required him to be physically and emotionally naked for much of the film.

Though released only seven years ago, the film has been quietly forgotten in that time but deserves to have its place in modern Korean cinema recognized. Since then, CHUNG has been active directing or producing documentaries and more recently took on the post of Chairman of the Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival (BIFAN). However, he is now once again returning to theaters with the thriller BLACK MONEY, starring CHO Jin-woong and LEE Ha-nee, which is due out in Korean theaters on November 13.

Any copying, republication or redistribution of KOFIC's content is prohibited without prior consent of KOFIC.

Related People