In the early days of the global outbreak of the new crown epidemic, we saw a variety of reactions, it was common for India to lie flat and wait for victory with a normal heart, Japan’s efforts to keep the Olympic Games quiet as an ostrich showed the imagination of the Yamato nation, and the untimely release of some freedom-believing masses in the West was once staggering.
But these seem to be nothing compared to South Korea, our neighbor’s cult capitalism has sprung up, together with the soaring number of confirmed cases, and this kind of plot that almost “annihilated” with the power of one religion is really an absurd version that even the writers of the story dare not try.
As the culprit of this gathering and spreading, the name sounded like a shopping mall cult “Xintiandi”, and in the end, public opinion could not resist the old president kneeling and kowtowing to express his gratitude. However, this act of disaster elimination was reborn because of the watch worn by the old guild president. This commemorative watch made by the Blue House during Park Geun-hye’s administration is not only engraved with President Park’s name, but also represents the absurd years when politics and state were closely linked.
President of Shincheonchi
Park Geun-hye commemorative watch
Park Geun-hye, as the first female president in South Korea’s history, was originally a powerful embodiment of South Korea’s superfemale society, but her downfall because of her cult girlfriend’s interference in politics is shocking, and she has even been arrested and imprisoned and has not been released, and on the contrary, the reason for her success in coming to power in the first place has to be said to carry the halo of her father Park Chung-hee to a certain extent.
Park Geun-hye with her father Park Chung-hee
Although his authoritarian government has great political arbitrariness, it has the greatest integration of domestic resources at that time, becoming a powerful driver of South Korea’s economic miracle, but it is also the only president to be assassinated during his term of office, and his dramatic ending has been repeatedly joked and put on the screen.
“The Ministers of Namsan Mountain” is a film that culminates in the assassination of Park Chung-hee, through the open and dark fighting between different political factions 40 days before the assassination incident, it reproduces the ups and downs and disputes that the old regime must go through to face transformation, and criticizes the tyranny of the authoritarian government from the perspective of modern democratization.
“Ministers of Nanshan” poster
The reason why the title of the film is called the ministers of Namsan is because the film is based on Kim Jae-kyu, then head of the Central Intelligence Department, as the main character, and this intelligence department is located in Namsan, so the ministers who are the second-in-command in South Korea are called “the ministers of Namshan”, and Kim Jae-kyu is not only in a high position, but also the one who assassinated Park Chung-hee.
The CIA, as familiar as it sounds, is undoubtedly modeled after the CIA, and the CIA has appeared as an adviser for a long time, which has given Minister Kim more contact with the United States than ordinary people, and has also become evidence of his democratization tendencies, increasing his disagreement with Park Chung-hee’s authoritarian government.
Ministers of Nanshan
In the film, Kim Jae-kyu is assumed the name Kim Gye-hye, and is portrayed as a character with pathos, cherishing the “revolutionary friendship” with President Park, and daring to repeatedly voice out against tyranny, even with a certain sense of martyrdom. The actor Li Bingxian’s sunken cheeks, drooping mouth corners, gloomy eyes behind glasses, and red eye sockets at every turn portray the character’s superficial restraint and inner resentment.
Kim Gye-hyung (Kim Jae-kyu)
Park Chung-hee, on the other hand, is more shown as an iron fist as a strongman, brutally suppressing popular demonstrations, cajoling and exploiting his cronies and subordinates, and even putting on his head the corruption he is committed to fighting, completely looking like an evil dictator who is vicious and deep-faced.
This formed a face-painted interpretation of the end of the authoritarian regime, which made Park Chung-hee’s assassination inevitable with fate, and also foreshadowed the short life of subsequent military governments, and was the corpse of the victorious democracy in history.
President Park (Park Chung-hee)
Audiences who don’t know much about this history may be confused at first glance, but in terms of the characters in the film, we can focus on four people, President Park (Park Chung-hee), CIA Minister Kim Gye-hyung (Kim Jae-kyu), former CIA Minister Park Yong-gok (Kim Kyung-wook), and Security Chief Guo Sang-cheon (Cha Ji-chul). The relationship between them can also be popularly understood as that both Minister Guo and Minister Kim are good partners of President Park, and the two fight openly and secretly for the greatest friendship of President Park, Park Yonggek is President Park’s former friend, and after the friendship boat capsized, he ran to the United States to report and expose Lao Park’s tyranny.
Park Yong-gok (Kim Kyung-wook)
Guo Xiangchuan (Cha Zhiche)
The main plot can also be roughly divided into two points and one line, and the two points are two major events, namely, Park Yong-ge’s defection to the United States and eventual assassination in Paris, and Kim Gyeong-hyung’s assassination of President Park at a banquet and his capture and hanging. The line is a line of emotional change, that is, how Kim Gyeong-hyung and President Park evolved little by little from close comrades to political enemies who were quickly eliminated.
Among the two major events, the most joked component is the Park Yongge part, the prototype Kim Jiong-wook’s disappearance case is still inconclusive, the film uses part of the 2005 South Korean “Current Affairs Weekly” report and secondary processing, not only the secret fight between Guo and Kim is placed in it, but also becomes a major turning point in the breakdown of the relationship between Kim Gui-hyung and President Park.
In the setting of the film, Guo and Kim tried to put Park Yongge to death in order to invite credit in front of President Park, and in order to make the incident an opportunity to promote Kim Yong-hyeong’s transformation, the director gave Kim Yong-hye’s men a head start by mistake and successfully captured Park Yong-geok and shot him to pieces.
Park Yong-gok was assassinated
Kim thought that he could redeem trust by successfully completing the task assigned by President Park, but he did not want to disappoint President Park again because of his opposition to martial law, and he didn’t even take him with him, but with Guo Sang-cheon, whom he hated the most.
The character of Guo Sang-cheon is very close to the prototype Cha Ji-cheol, as the head of the guard office, he walks around him every day on the pretext of protecting President Park’s safety, and also takes the opportunity to spread bad words about Kim Guo-hyun, unconditionally supports President Park’s every decision, and even dispatches tanks to deter, a typical image of an authoritarian government with domineering minions.
The domineering Guo Xiangchuan
And the qualification to drink alone with President Park is a powerful expression of intimacy and trust, and Kim Guo-hyo who has this qualification in the first part of the film, and in the latter part, he becomes Guo Xiangchuan, and the change in status is clear.
President Park and Kim Gye-suk
President Park and Guo Sang-cheon
As a result, the most infectious scene in the film is when Kim Gyeong-hu goes deep into Miyai-dong to eavesdrop on the conversation between President Park and Guo Sang-cheon. In this paragraph, Jin Guihui’s mood shows a clear progression as the conversation deepens, and the character scenes also show this strong change from close-up to close-up to large close-up.
Especially when he heard President Park say that he killed a friend and was not trustworthy, Kim Gui-sang’s glasses were hung with the rain that was about to fall like teardrops, full of strong grievances and resentment. What made him even more chilling was that President Park then said to Guo Sang-cheon, “Isn’t there me?” Do what you want. ”
Kim Jae-hye eavesdropped on President Park
This sentence fully shows the high power of President Park, and appears three times in the film, corresponding to Park Yongge, Kim Gyeong-hye, and Guo Sang-cheon, three of his former servants and successors. Each time, President Park used this phrase to imply that the parties used violence to complete the political task, and afterwards blamed the negative effects on the executors.
Through these words, President Park used Park Yong-gek to seriously injure Kim Seung-jo to promote the constitutional reform of the three elections, used Kim Gyeong-hyung to assassinate Park Yong-kak to avoid the leakage of political scandals, and finally used Kwok Sang-cheon to deal with Kim Gyeong-ho to eliminate democratic infiltration.
But what he didn’t expect was that Park Yongge absconded to the United States at most, and Kim Gui-hyung chose to kill with passion in extreme resentment, which led to the climactic paragraph of the film.
This passage highly restores historical moments, and appropriately uses dramatic elements, renders the tension and increases the latitude of the characters.
At the banquet that President Park originally set up to try to ease relations with Guo Kim, the atmosphere was once tense due to Guo Sang-cheon’s constantly provocative and mocking words. Kim Gui-hyun’s anger gradually became impatient, and Park Yongge’s words came to his mind – “Why revolution? “The dictatorship they overthrew with their lives has now re-emerged, and it is intensifying.
Guo Xiangchuan mocked Kim Guihui
In reality, Kim Jae-kyu scolded Cha Ji-chul for being a waste, pulled out a gun and shot him, and then shot Park Chung-hee on the opposite side.
In the film, Kim has a bolder move, and he directly calls for President Park to step down, which seems to represent the call for democracy and has a hint of illusion about a peaceful transition to authoritarian power. This setting shows that the director still defines Kim Guixi more as a revolutionary and democratic pioneer, rather than a careerist who is just for the sake of individuals fighting for power within the ruling class and trying to usurp the throne.
Kim advised President Park to step down
Ironically, at the previous meeting, President Park, who was determined to violently suppress the marches, said very arrogantly: Who can sentence me to death. In a word, at this time, he was facing the muzzle of the black hole that Jin Guizhi pointed at him. After a gunshot, President Park’s chest was bleeding.
Then a more dramatic scene appeared, and Kim Gyeong-hyung walked up to President Park, who had long lost consciousness, and said righteously: Execute Your Excellency as a traitor to the revolution. He said and shot him hard in the head. And “Traitor to the Revolution” is the title of the previous book by Park Yonggok exposing President Park’s political scandal. The plot of this joke once again pushed Kim Gyeong-hyo into the democratic camp, making his assassination of President Park a certain degree of justice and revolution.
Kim Gyeong-hyung shot President Park
South Korea, now a democracy, is bound to be critical of the authoritarian regimes of the past, but it was Park Chung-hee’s use of such a highly centralized political system that enabled the developing South Korean economy to soar and successfully enter industrialization and modernization. Even Singapore and Taiwan, one of the four Asian tigers, achieved change under the same strongman politics. However, this kind of regime, which is highly dependent on the political consciousness of the rulers, is itself extremely unstable, and transformation is inevitable.
South Korea after Park Chung-hee went through many military governments to truly embark on the road of democratization, but the curse of the Blue House also began. From Chun Doo-hwan to Park Geun-hye, these presidents were arrested, committed suicide, and their families took bribes, and none of them survived the end of their lives.
So it seems that whether it is authoritarian or democratic, the polity can be changed, but the high risk of the South Korean president has never changed.