Right place, right time

The movie “Friend” hit the screens in 2001 and with no doubt it was a phenomenal success. Even with the high age restriction of +19, over 8 million people saw the movie, which was nearly 1/6 of the entire South Korean population. As discussed in the article “No Blood? No tears!” by Jinhee Choi, the big success of “Friend” even created a new trend of gangster cinema that lasted for years. Although I was too young at the time to go see the movie, I remember it being played in Vancouver at a small theatre for the Korean immigrants. It was the first Korean movie ever to be screened in Vancouver. I believe that there were definitely more than one contributing factors that led to the success of the movie and the rise of gangster cinemas. For one, Jang Dong-gun, a.k.a. ‘the’ best looking actor in Korea, served as an eye candy attracting the female audience, which also began the trend of ‘good-looking gangsters’ in gangster films. But the major contributing factor for the success, I believe, was director Kwak Kyung-taek’s ingenious choice of target audience, the Korean baby boomers, and the release of the movie at the right time.

A Korean baby boomer is a person who was born right after the Korean War, between the years 1955-1964. Towards the end of the movie when Jun-suk is in court for his hearing, we find out that he was born in 1964, thus making him and his friends a part of, and representation of the baby boom generation. The baby boom generation in Korea are those who led the ‘miracle of Han River.’ They are the ones who went through the Park Chung-hee and Chun Doo-hwan military regime and the IMF financial crisis; they are the generation of suppression and oppression. I agree with Choi in a sense that the movie served as a representation of frustration, or release of tension in forms of physical and verbal violence, perhaps giving vicarious satisfaction. However I believe that it was less about the frustration of younger generations, but more about the expression of anger and hostility or release of tension for the baby boom generation just entering their 40’s, give or take a few years. The release date of the movie is also contributes to the success, noting that the film is released just months after Kim Dae-jung’s announcement proclaiming that Korea is free from debt. Up until that time, the baby boomers probably had no time to breathe, let alone reminisce about their ‘good old days.’ It’s only after the extreme hardship has passed by, that one can afford to romanticize the past and be lost in nostalgia. I remember my dad saying that the movie poster itself is enough to stir up the nostalgic feeling among men his age. Whether it was intended by director Kwak Kyung-taek or it was just a mere coincidence, the movie was definitely in the right place at the right time.