Review of A Taxi Driver / 택시운전사, directed by Jang Hoon

For so many years, everyone has been telling me that I need to see A Taxi Driver. On the Internet I kept reading that it was one of Song Kang-ho’s best performances, and that’s pretty impressive considering this guy’s filmography. But because it never appeared to me at the right time, I never actually sat down and watched the film.

Until one day, I decided to upgrade my Viki account to the premium one because I was splitting it with three friends, and I saw it as an investment anyways because of this blog. When I did that, I saw A Taxi Driver was available for me to watch for free, and from there the rest is history.

It was certainly interesting to watch this movie though when I had finished conducting research for my master’s thesis, which was on colonial and postcolonial women’s literature in Korea. The Gwangju Uprising is another sad chapter in recent Korean history, but not a lot of people know about it.

I’m already rambling, so let’s get into the blog post!

A Western journalist joins forces with a Korean taxi driver to capture the events unfolding during the Gwangju Massacre.

One of our main characters, the one who we are first introduced to, in this story is Kim Man-seob. A Korean taxi driver who takes care of his daughter as a single parent, he’s willing to do whatever it takes to get an income to provide for his family. When he hears about a taxi driver claiming he got 100,000 won (about $90 USD today) to take a foreigner to Gwangju, his ears pick up.

He then takes the client, who is a German journalist, and tells him that he will take the guy to Gwangju. Little does he know that the Gwangju Uprising is happening right now, which is why the guy is willing to pay good money to get into the city. It’s on military lockdown.

The journalist, Peter, wants to document the uprising. But when they approach Gwangju in the taxi, they are turned away by the soldiers. Peter claims he is a businessman, and then they are allowed briefly into the city limits. There, they find college students protesting on the streets.

When they meet the students, they invite Peter onto their truck. Man-seob realizes something is going down here and wants to go back, then he helps an older woman find her lost son, who is one of the college students. Peter gets upset that Man-seob left him for this side quest, and wants to pay part of the fare.

The students and other taxi drivers refuse to let him pay, and Man-seob will eventually have to take them back. A student, Jae-sik, takes them tot he Provincial Office, and Peter then films the chaos that is about to unfold in front of them. If you’re queasy about police and military brutality, this is where the film starts getting rough.

They barely manage to escape the officers sweeping the area, but then Man-seob’s taxi breaks down. Another driver, Tae-soo, lets them stay the night at their home. When they eat dinner, they discover the local television station was bombed, and they head out to film the aftermath.

However, while they are there, the officers recognize them, and they’re chase. Jae-sik is captured and eventually killed. Man-seob decides he needs to go back home with the fake license plates Tae-soo gives him, but when he gets out of town, he learns about how the outside world knows nothing about what is really happening in Gwangju.

He heads back into the city, where he finds Peter and Tae-soo with Jae-sik’s corpse. Peter tells Man-seob to go back home to his daughter, but he refuses. Not long after, the soldiers open fire on a protest, killing anyone who comes in their path.

Man-seob and the other taxi drivers help evacuate the wounded still alive, and then Peter and Man-seob head out of town. They are stopped by soldiers, who let them through initially because of the Gwangju tags, but narrowly escape once the soldiers receive orders to stop foreigners.

The duo are chased by military vehicles, but the other taxi drivers heroically sacrifice their own lives in order for Man-seob and Peter to escape. Man-seob drops Peter off at the airport, and he narrowly gets out before the government realizes his identity.

Despite this, Man-seob writes his name down in Peter’s journal as Kim Sa-bok and gives a fake number. He goes home to his daughter. Peter returns to Japan and releases footage about the massacre. broadcasting the truth. Years later, Peter is awarded for his efforts, but he’s still looking for Kim Sa-bok.

Overall Thoughts

This isn’t my first rodeo with narratives about the Gwangju Uprising and subsequent massacre of civilians and students, so I knew what to expect going into this. It isn’t solely focused on the uprising, as we see it through the lens of these two protagonists.

Their job is to survive and report to the outside world what’s happening in Gwangju, as the Korean media was heavily censored at the time. No one knew what was happening, or anywhere near to the truth of the matter.

It’s through the connections with other characters that we begin humanizing the efforts of the people on the ground, and the extent of the tragedy that occurred. This is a very important film, and if you haven’t seen it already, you really should.

Follow me below on Instagram and Goodreads for more.