Law & Order: South Korean uprising

1987: When the Day Comes

The relative freedom and civil liberties enjoyed by South Koreans today are also a relatively new development, as Jang Joon-hwan’s new based-in-fact film reminds us. 1987: When the Day Comes looks back 30 years to when the country was ruled by a military regime that turned a blind eye to intimidation of the press and police torture of civilians.

The style is that of a very long and complicated episode of Law & Order; there’s even some clackity-clack typing to introduce characters and indicate place and time. Honestly, I half expected to hear “dun, dun” at the end of every scene.

The populist uprising in 1987 began with the death of a student radical in police custody. Director Park (Kim Yoon-seok), the North Korean-born head of the South’s anti-Communist forces, wants to cremate the body and move on, but the harddrinking, plays-by-his-own rules prosecutor Choi (Ha Jung-woo) won’t allow it.

So the main characters are pretty standard types, as are the aggressive reporter, the well-meaning priest, the virtuous prison guard and his helpful niece, whose romantic interest in a good-looking student protester is perhaps the film’s silliest misstep.

But Jang tells the story with panache and a flair for the well-placed match cut, like the shot of falling snow that gradually fades into an image of the ashes of the dead student. There’s also a very clever scene in which Choi is able to hand some secret files over to a journalist in full view of security officials, with no one the wiser.

The result is a somewhat melodramatic retelling of an episode in South Korean history. Those with an interest in the region will benefit the most from this story, but it also illustrates how seemingly small actions can gradually snowball into a movement that brings about huge change. That’s as true in 2018 as it was in 1987.