friend

Kwak KyungTaek filmed ‘Friend’ in 2001. The film is based on the story of gangster group, Chilsungpa, in Busan, Korea. The film, ‘Friend’ is still considered as the first best gangster film in Korea. The film includes the topics of ‘friendship’, ‘loyalty’ and ‘love’. Like the ‘Peppermint candy’ (Lee Changdong, 2000), ‘Friend’ shows the different timelines in one film. It includes the story in 1976, when they were 13 years old, 1981, when they were high school students, 1983, when they became 20, which shows that they went four different ways, finally 1990, when they became 27.

This film reminds me of the friendship just like the title. Also, on the film poster, it says ‘ we have no fear, when we are together’ The film doesn't include the story of how Junseok, Dongsu, Sangtaek, and Joongho became friend, but their combination was interesting because for me, I usually hang out with friends, who have something in common, however, as shown in the film, each of them has different characteristics, and backgrounds.  Especially, Sangtaek is known as ‘woodeungsaeng’, the honour student at school.

Personally, this is first time to watch the film ‘friend’, but some scenes were familiar for me because many Korean television dramas and entertainment program imitated the film ‘friend’ According to the articles, the film ‘friend’ was one of the box office hit after the successful with the film ‘Shiri’ (Kang Jegyu, 1999). Because the film deals with the gangster stories, some scenes were cruel, and some scenes were violent. Maybe that’s the reason why some Koreans like this film, and some of them don't. My parents liked this film, because the film was shot in their hometown, Pusan, and includes the 7080 generations’ stories. Whenever I see the comments under the online articles, there are many older generation (also known as Kisung saedae) mentioning ‘even though we live in the 21^st century and the technology and life is better now, during those days (7080s) were much better, when all the citizens put their efforts to save Korea as one mind, even though they all faced a hard time’ Whenever I saw the comments like that, it makes me feel bitter about the fact that people in these days have to compete each other.