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It feels like the single most obvious thing one could do to point out how the events of Joon Hwan-Jang’s 1987: When the Day Comes feel like a dark mirror into the current state of affairs in these here United States. So instead of stating the obvious, I’m going to make the second most obvious observation:
It is super weird that this is by the same dude that made Save the Green Planet.
There doesn’t appear to be any common thread among director Hwan-Jang’s all-too-limited filmography, so it’s difficult to trace the thread that led from the gonzo genre pileup that was Planet and this sprawling, dense, utterly riveting true life epic.
“Eradicate communism!” is the oft repeated battle cry of the South Korean Anti-Communist Investigators task force, a Government agency dedicated to ferreting out and eliminating any threats coming from their Northern neighbors. But by the time the film opens in January of 1987, any claim they have to operating as a force for good has long since curdled into law flouting brutality.
The “enhanced interrogation”-related death of Park Jong-Chul, a young and frightened student, is the first domino in an ever expanding series of events that will (spoiler alert) unite the people and eventually bring down the corrupt and Fascist leaning reign of the Fifth Republic.
The revolution starts out, fittingly enough, as an act of defiant bureaucracy. Director Park (Yoo Seok-Kim), the cool, composed director of Anti-Communist Investigations, wants Prosecutor Choi (Jung-woo Ha) to rubber stamp a death report and bury their accident. But Choi, tired of being pushed around, insists on doing things by the book… a standoff that spirals out in unexpected and dangerous ways for everyone involved.
What’s most remarkable about 1987 is how it constantly expands outward, drawing more and more people into the orbit of unfolding history and showing the true scope of how a revolution is formed. It would take longer than we’ve got here to chart all the individuals and their actions, small and large, that contribute to the bigger picture, but Hwan-Jang manages to keep it all balanced and eminently followable; you’ll know a character is important if they get their name and occupation highlighted in an onscreen chyron.
Very cool font on those, in case anyone besides me is interested in that sort of thing.
But I digress…
South Korea has a strong hand when it comes to turning real world systemic corruption into high entertainment that never quite spills over into polemic territory. Previous NYAFF entries like 2016’s A Violent Prosecutor and 2017’s double barreled blast of Inside Men and Ordinary Person mixed their trenchant political content with the sort of crowd pleasing fun Hollywood tends to churn out en masse without the benefit of anything other than empty calories, and 1987 is no less entertaining for its true life basis. The kinetic style Hwan-Jang more or less perfected with Green Planet lends itself surprisingly well to this film, lending a tense and relentless energy to the proceedings. And as wide as events become, it has to be said that the human cost of all this relentless maneuvering never gets lost in the process. A runner with a shaggy young protestor (Gang Dong-Won) and the niece of a prison guard (Kim Tae-Ri) works way better than it has any right to, given everything unfolding around them.
In fact, the moment they meet happens to be in one of the film’s bravura sequences, a flash protest that devolves into a riot with terrifying rapidity. There are genuine visceral thrills in Tae-Ri and Dong-Won’s efforts to avoid the thuggish, jean jacketed “peacekeepers” pummeling every dissenter in sight, thrills that rival any modern Hollywood blockbuster.
There’s a lot to recommend in 1987: When The Day Comes, a compulsively watchable screed that feels dismayingly on point and contemporary for a period based, real life political epic. Yet the insight it provides, the hope of change it engenders, and the sheer entertainment value are not to be denied.
