The President's Last Bang
Length: 02:00 Type of program: World Cinema
Directed by Im Sang-soo
South Korea, 102 minutes
Official Selection — Cannes, New York, Toronto and Telluride film festivals
Based on a true story, The President’s Last Bang dramatizes South Korean head of state Park Chung Hee’s assassination by his director of central intelligence in 1979. Going where only Altman’s M*A*S*H and Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove have traveled before, The President's Last Bang is both a “nasty, profane and utterly bracing black comedy,” (Premiere Magazine) and “assumption-destroying, deeply entertaining political art” (The New York Sun).
Sang-soo’s coolly dynamic camera reveals the most scandalous 24 hours in twentieth century Korean memory with fluid grace and uncommon skill, and his cast anchors The President’s Last Bang is a remarkable mix of exposé, tragedy and farce with meticulously observed characterizations. This is contemporary Asian cinema at its most courageous, audacious and insightful.
The President’s Last Bang is essential viewing for anyone who wants to understand the roots of modern Korean democracy and politics.
To learn more about this film as well as to purchase a copy, visit Kino International.
CINEMONDO
This film is part of Link TV’s new world cinema series Cinemondo, premiering entertaining and award-winning foreign films from some of the world’s most talented directors. For a full list of films, click here.
Following the broadcast of The President’s Last Bang, Link TV will air a short film:
My Computer (South Korea 1999, 14 minutes)
Directed by Yeo Kyun-dong
A young man who spends a lot of time on his computer is arrested under the South Korean National Security Law. His computer is taken as evidence. He is eventually set free, but unable to reclaim the computer. Twenty years later, he and his beloved computer are reunited in the most unusual of ways. Told from the perspective of the computer, this short film shows the futility of the National Security Law and the way in which the lives of ordinary people were unnecessarily altered through its application.
