12.12: The Day (2023)

Excellent screenplay and top class acting

Large scale of real historical events told with an excellent screenplay that is great in details and heavy in suspense. It is more towards story focused instead of action focused, and the storyline is actually quite complicated to present but it was done really precisely, somehow they've made the plot easy to follow and characters' motivation very clear to understand. Huge plus from the acting performances, all the actors are absolutely top class and the movie works so great mainly due to those intense face-offs, so much stakes on screen but so meticulously arranged, simply unbelievable.

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Soldiers Duty

I love Korea and have studied its history, but this film surprised me and revealed an important detail in the puzzle of Korean history on the rise of the expected "Seoul Spring" in the democratization of society. To speak more about the historical events here, would mean revealing the spoilers of the film, but I can say that the feelings that the depicted events evoke, correspond to the "han" sentiment (and fate?!) of Korean people, which unfortunately we see less and less in modern Korean cinema.

As the title of the film suggests (12:12), the film is dedicated to one chaotic day in which a group of military officers connected under the name Hanahoe, attempted a military coup d'état in Seoul. The panic and chaos that followed, primarily in the military ranks, is excellently portrayed in this film thanks to great actors and a dynamic change of shots where, interestingly, we feel the most tension through the many dramatic phone calls. And although at times it is difficult to follow who is saying what to whom, the events of this chaotic night are presented to us viewers in a brutally honest way that can also serve as a warning to new generations. It is a story about the service, duty and responsibility of soldiers, but also of all other people, because we all need to cooperate for the common good. It is scary how people can deny their moral duties and how colleagues can easily turn against each other.

The film is very long, so I will not make this text longer, but I leave this as a recommendation for all serious viewers to put this movie on their "to watch list". It is well worth the time.

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