Evil-ution

Yong-ho's "life" starts with a hopeful stare towards the sky.

      Even though I am part of a society, even though I am a Canadian citizen, I have never been under pressure because of my country personally. I have never felt government’s decisions really affect my day to day life the same way maybe Korean people felt in the 70’s or 80’s. Because of this, I feel like I lack the understanding of having your life take drastic turns because of things that aren’t really in my control. The start of Yong-ho’s rollercoaster life begins while he is on military duty and accidentally shoots an innocent student. We see that Yong-ho doesn’t fit in the military; he stumbles everywhere and seems quite clumsy, having a hard time to keep up with the rest. If he had a choice to do 26 months of service or not, my guess is he wouldn’t of gone, or if he would have, he would of left after 1 month. This I cannot relate to because Canada has never asked me to do mandatory service and never will. A Korean friend of mine told me a little about his service, he did not mention much because I could see that he was uncomfortable talking about it, in the end he simply said military service is not for everyone, “I am not a soldier, I experienced horrible things and I just want to forget”. I was used to him being a jolly guy, he loves playing music and learn new things –I had never seen him so miserable as to when he spoke about his military service. Even though he did not say much, I felt like that alone spoke volume about mandatory service, and that I will never truly understand. Scarred is the word that comes to mind, scarred is what kind of man Yong-ho was.

     Throughout the film I thought Yong-ho did not have control over his life, he was a messy character. After his service, for him to become a cop and torture students and citizens like he did is what a call a career aimed in the wrong direction. The worst thing that could happen after his mandatory service was to become a crooked cop, which he did, and did not seem to have control over what he had to do. He just had to do things.

     After that, he became his own man and started making decisions, and what bad decisions they were. Living his Hong-ja, a woman he clearly doesn’t care about, a woman who by the way always needs to be “guided” whether it be learning how to ride a bike, learning how to drive or having some godly guidance, she is definitely not the most assuming character. Which brings me to wonder about Yong-ho’s attitude towards Sun-im. The restaurant scene was very hard to watch, for Yong-ho to feign interest in Hong-ja and act like a jackass in front of Sun-im was just weird and frustrating. Did he think he did not deserve the innocent but sweet Sun-im? Did he hate her for showing him kindness out of the blue? Was he distraught because he hasn’t experienced acts of kindness in such a long time? I feel like Sun-im was his lifebuoy which he refused, maybe if he would of accepted Sun-im, some sort of healing could of taken place over time.

Complete reverse of the first image (literally), Yong-ho's life ends with a restless look to the sky.