The Beautiful Man who helped millions with a Single Spark: Jeon Tae Il

As the university students in the 1960s and 1970s  experienced  'former President Parks oppressive yusin policies and Chuns excesses during the Kwangju massacre', they had a  'general consciousness of the threat that both their own society and imperialistic policies of USA ', they felt the need to become  'the centre of political and social change in the 1980s '. Many directors who made films in the late 1980s and early 1990s were from this period of time, thus most made numerous realism films.

According to Isolde Standish, Park gwangsu's films 'conform to a narrative structure which reduces socio-economic and political issues to individual drama '. In other words, the film was able to focus on the realistic harsh conditions that the laborers worked in, which led students to take action, instead of merely portraying Jeon tae il is a very heroic figure. I find that in return, as the film approaches realism in this manner, the narrative of Jeon tae il serves as a bona fide and memorable representation of the history and social background of the era.  

The Korean title and the English translated title is completely different each other literally, as the korean translation means beautiful (young) man. However, there is a correlation in that both signify some kind of being that is passionate and extremely generous being, which seems to explain Jeon tae il 's characteristics.

The film presents yongsoo 's life in color and jeon taeil 's life in black and white as a flashlight. This distinction represents the same ideas and goals that both men had in different time periods, which seemed to me that there is an ongoing endeavor for a better working life for laborers.

At the end of the movie, Jeon tae il carries the book that yongsoo wrote - this portrays that there would be many more jeontaeil-like heroes to come, and see him as an inspiration as he was the brave initiative to enact better conditions for the workers.

Jeon tae il seems extremely mature for his age as he is very young, and about the same age as most of us in the class, however, he managed to help millions of laborers to work in better working conditions. As he yelled  'we are not machines ' when he lit himself on fire, he was truly proving his sentence as he showed that he was a human being with a generous heart who sacrificed himself for many others.