Steel Rain

It’s a pretty wild time to be alive (a sentiment that’s likely been shared by just about every past generation, admittedly).  I mean, look at the divisive nature of US politics, there’s an NHL team in Las Vegas (urm, I mean just “Vegas”) and it’s in the playoffs, there’s a growing number of people who – to some degree of earnestness – aver that the Earth is actually a flat disk, and companies that make hundreds of millions of dollars of quarterly profit massively cut their workforce (you’d think they’d do the opposite, right?).  It’s fitting, then, that the Korean peninsula is on the verge of full detente, following plenty of blustering by both sides and their allies and enemies, the possibility of a nuclear strike dangled above it all rather carelessly.

This is in image presaged by Yang Woo-suk’s Steel Rain.

Based on the writer/director’s own webcomic of the same name, Steel Rain homes in on a twisted coup in North Korea.  An attack is made on the Great Leader (referred to nearly exclusively as Number One) by his own subordinates using US weapons formerly held by South Korea, thus providing a foreign scapegoat.  A North Korean soldier is present at the assassination, hoping to thwart it, and is able to secure Number One (who’s been rendered unconscious by the attack) and hightail it across the border.  In the process of seeking medical aid for his leader, the soldier runs happens into a government official, and the two set out to avert all-out nuclear annihilation and understand one another in the process.

I got a strong Sum of All Fears vibe from this, what with a convoluted coup being cooked up to stir the simmering tensions of two rival countries, the efforts of a government bureaucrat to fix things in the face of a hawkish leader, and the hot-potato juggling of the nuclear option on both sides of the conflict.

Kwak Do-won does a fine job as the South Korean official, starting things off decidedly ho-hum and boring (how else would one portray a bureaucrat?) and increasingly gaining some nerve and heart as things spiral out of control.  Jung Woo-Sung holds his own from the other side of the table, giving an understandably stern, tense, and wary performance at the start, only to gradually warm up to his southern counterpart.  The dynamic between these two men forms a central microcosm of the surrounding narrative, as they interact at a mostly utilitarian level at first, ease up a bit, grow suspicious of each other at the drop of a hat, and ultimately figure out how to cooperate for the greater good.  Indeed, they share the same name, a homophone of the film’s title, showing just how much they have in common.

And this theme of commonalities and the yen toward reconciliation between North and South permeates the whole film.  Throughout, we are told that the everyday Korean, be said Korean in Pyongyang or Daegu, Hamhung or Seoul, truly desires a reunited Korea, but still feels a modicum of distrust toward the opposing side.  The president-elect of South Korea is seen reading a book by Willy Brandt, the former German chancellor who greatly favored a speedy reunification with East Germany right before the Wall came down, visually affirming the politics he tries to further despite the protestations of the still-acting lame duck.  Of course, these feelings are all coming from the perspective of a South Korean cast and crew, and the feelings are readily projected onto the North Koreans in the film, so perhaps the mindset of peace and reconciliation is merely unidirectional; we’ll have to wait and see.

Regardless, the film’s message of reunification and peace being the ultimate goal to be worked toward, damn the paranoid and bloodthirsty politicians of division, is a welcome one.  There’s a decent amount of bloodshed in the film, but it’s all framed as needless, each corpse only an unwittingly manipulated nail in the coffin of the greater Korean good.  The harsh world of entangling and constricting alliances surrounding the peninsula is roundly critiqued, the self-serving and opportunistic agents of the US, China, and Japan receiving a hefty amount of finger-wagging, even while the governments reach out thereto for aid, an illustration of just how complicated things are over there.

Admittedly, the film suffers from some pacing issues, going on for a trifle too long (and feeling it) and building to a relative climax too early, but the message, acting, and political tensions help to maintain attention.  I’d say if you enjoyed The Sum of All Fears and similar political/military thrillers, Steel Rain is worth a go, especially while we’re watching the Koreans ostensibly moving toward real-world peace and disarmament.