Mark at the highest position in Korean box office this week is the homemade movie “May 18”, which also one of the highest budget movies in Korea this year. While the big budget Hollywood summer movie onslaughts the domestic box office , this based on true story drama likes giving the fresh air to become the first blockbuster level hit in what has been a highly disappointing summer for Korean films. “May 18” easily blocked “Live Free or Die Hard” and “Ratatouille” from snatching the first position this week.

In this movie, the director Kim Ji-hon portrays the tragic incident in Gwangju at May 18, 1980, when troops sent by the military dictatorship killed hundreds of innocent citizens. The story is told from the eye of four main characters inspired by real life victims of the tragedy. The lives of this four ordinary people are forever changed by May 18 incidents. They are the orphaned taxi driver Min-wu (Kim Sang-kyeong) with his studious younger brother Jin-wu (Lee Joon-ki), the lovely nurse Sin-ae (Lee Yo-won) and her former military father, Heung-su (Ahn Seong-gi). Min-wu had lived each day humbly and conscientiously with his benefits from driving taxi, so his younger brother Jin-wu can enter college, but they were live in peacefully, while Min also nurturing his affection for the pretty nurse Sin-ae. But when the soldiers go on the rampage against the citizens, the taxi driver joins the armed civil militias headed by Heung-su after his young brother is killed during the gunfire. While the girlfriend Sin-ae risks her life to treat the injured and joins the violence when she fires at a paratrooper in defense of Min-wu.
The Min-wu’s character was inspired by a 31-year-old man who became a de-facto spokesman for the civilian militia and was later killed during the protest, and Sin-ae is based on a woman who took the streets to notify citizens about the paratroopers’ operations.

These are some stills from the movie (Source: CJ Entertainment)