President´s Last Bang ( 2005 )

Based On Actual Events

A "wildly funny whirlwind of anarchy, violence and sex" (New York Magazine), The President´s Last Bang depicts the brutal reality and ensuing chaos of a political coup with unapologetic frankness, unexpected humor and unrelieved intensity. Imaginatively recreating the 1979 assassination of South Korean President Park Chung-hee, writer-director Im Sang-soo dares to make complex, realistically neurotic characters out of the most polarizing figures in modern Korean political history.

Though outwardly cynical, Korean CIA chief Kim secretly nurtures a personal disgust with his dissolute president´s embarrassing appetites and impatience with his dissent-mired nation. During yet another banquet with President Park, the chief executive´s corrupt top advisors and two wary party girls, Kim impulsively improvises a conspiracy that will change the course of world politics. When Kim and his thuggish enforcer Ju (Han Suk-kyu, Tell Me Something) make their move, they initiate a bloodbath that threatens to drown both victim and assassin.

Going where only Altman´s M.A.S.H. and Kubrick´s Strangelove have traveled before, The President´s Last Bang is both a "nasty, profane and utterly bracing black comedy," (Premiere Magazine) and "assumption-destroying, deeply entertaining political art" (Grady Hendrix, NY Sun). Sang-soo´s coolly dynamic camera reveals the most scandalous 24 hours in twentieth century Korean memory with fluid grace and uncommon skill, and his cast anchors The President´s Last Bang´s remarkable mix of expose, tragedy and farce with keenly observed characterizations. It is contemporary Asian cinema at its most courageous, audacious and insightful.

Upplagd i sortimentet: 18 Maj, 2006