Review of The Attorney (2013) by Bonnie C — 08 Feb 2014

American reviewers didn't like it that much, but the korean audience stormed the theatres, 10 million out of 50 million koreans already saw it, and it passed the 10 million mark one week faster than Avatar.

It's a courtroom drama and a typical Song Kang-Ho film, so what? First, after the torture drama "Nation Security" last year it's one of the very few real historic film about the troubled past of military dictatorship, the student protests, which eventually led to the overthrow of the illegal military regime backed by the US.

Which also led to the korean film wonder in the last century, with Song Kang-Ho one of its biggest stars. As it is a real life story happening during the dictatorship but not ending with it, the dramatic end is a bit difficult to achieve.

The attorney fights for justice but cannot win under these circumstances. Koreans know that, americans find it too sappy and melodramatic, an uneven mix of the dramatic discourse with the melodramatic pathos.

But the story is pathetic, like the fight of the knight of la mancha against a national security state system, and the hero has no idea who he is fighting against, in the end he is a pure idealist coming from a very unusual unidealistic background.