After "Squid Game" became the annual phenomenon-level drama, South Korea produced another blockbuster film -
Mogadishu
The film has attracted much attention during the publicity period, and has won a number of awards at the film festival, and once it landed in theaters, it immediately became the annual box office champion in South Korea.
The story tells a true event that has not been recorded in history:
In the 1980s, North and South Korea were in a dark struggle, both hoping to be the first to join the United Nations.
In order to win votes, Somalia, a small and volatile country in Africa, has become a must-fight place for the two Koreas.
The South Korean counsellor rushed to Somalia, carrying a tight diplomatic pouch containing not military secrets but precious gifts and local medicinal liquor.
South Korea's Ambassador Kang took great pains to finally make an appointment with the Somali president, and this valuable gift in the suitcase was a gift to the Somali president.
Unfortunately, before they could get the suitcase, a group of armed robbers forced the car to stop and snatched the suitcase.
Ambassador Jiang, who had been fighting korea for many years on the diplomatic battlefield, immediately thought:
This must be a ghost of the North Korean Embassy!
Sure enough, Ginger was still old and spicy, and the lost suitcase was given to the North Korean counselor by the robbers.
Without the meet and greet, the wheels were broken, and Ambassador Jiang did not even see the face of the Somali president;
But at the Somali Presidential Palace, I met Ambassador Lin of The Dprk, who had just completed a meeting with the President.
Is this a tone that the South Korean Embassy can endure? South Korean counselors approached reporters and said that the weapons in the rebels' photos were of North Korean style.
News reports immediately headlined "North Korea's funding of Somali rebels," and North Korea's years-old political allies began to tilt toward South Korea.
Just as the embassies of the two Koreas were in dispute, the Somali civil war broke out and the capital, Mogadishu, became a battlefield.
Rebels rushed into the city, and the city fell into flames.
When civilization and the rule of law are torn apart in the war, the so-called diplomatic immunity and neutrality of the embassy district are just a child's play, the major powers are the first to withdraw, and the embassies are attacked and looted.
The North Korean embassy was invaded by rebels, and Ambassador Lin led the embassy personnel to escape.
With no way forward and chasing soldiers behind, there was a knock on the door of the South Korean Embassy.
Ideological battles, political systems... At this moment, inside and outside the wall are "compatriots" who speak the same language and eat the same kimchi.
Ambassador Jiang took in Ambassador Lin and his entourage, did the North and The South cooperate to escape, or did they take the opportunity to first accept the other side's intelligence?
After the release of "Mogadishu", fans have benchmarked:
Isn't this the Korean version of Escape from Tehran and Wolf Warrior 2?
The film can cause a movie-watching frenzy in South Korea, and it can win awards and become a big hit for Korean movies to rush the Olympics again, which is inseparable from two biggest advantages:
Political satire hits the nail on the head.
Friends who have watched "Wolf Warrior 2" remember that when there was turmoil overseas, the motherland immediately launched the evacuation of overseas Chinese to protect the lives and property of overseas Chinese and overseas Chinese.
This big deal is limited to big countries!
In the film, when the situation in Somalia is stable, the counselors of the two Koreas despise and use the local population in Somalia like superiors.
But when the civil war in Somalia began, the situation fell uncontrollably towards anarchy, and the rebels ransacked the embassies of the two countries, not remembering the old feelings they had bought with money in the past.
Both governments, and even the embassies of neighboring countries, have said they cannot do anything about it.
The ambassadors of the two Koreas are even more tacitly acquiescing, one to go to the United States for rescue, and the other to go to China for rescue.
Small and weak countries can only rely on large countries for survival, which is a cruel and real situation.
There is also an even more ironic scene in the film, when the rebels began to attack the South Korean embassy during the day, and the South Korean counselor urgently played a propaganda tape.
Coupled with the text on the tape promoting friendship between the two countries and world peace, government forces launched an attack on the rebels, and bloody massacres were staged in the streets.
The tragic situation on the bloody streets aptly shows the old saying that "weak countries have no diplomacy", and Somalia, which has been pulled and used by various forces, has finally become a shura field for the collapse of the government.
The peninsula's sensational details are tear-jerking.
The Korean Peninsula, which is divided by the 38th Parallel, has become a battlefield for great powers, and the division and hostility here stem from the ideological struggle between the major powers, but it has caused permanent divisions on the peninsula.
When Ambassador Lin and his party entered Ambassador Jiang's home and sat down to eat together, the scene was full of embarrassment and heartache.
Ambassador Jiang's wife could not pick up the perilla leaves that were glued together, and Ambassador Lin naturally used chopsticks to help her suppress the piece below.
This simple action, which belonged to the normal assistance between family members, became a kind of bitterness that hit people's hearts at this time.
Obviously, they have the same cultural heritage, speak the same language, and eat the same kimchi, but they must be divided into two different camps that are hostile to each other.
The sensational moment is at its highest, at the end of the film when the two ambassadors get off the plane to part ways.
After a brief moment of watching each other, they returned to the camp of hostility to each other, and with feelings of inseparability for each other, they got into the car in different directions.
In this life, they will not see each other again.
Big productions create big scenes.
Director Liu Shengquan has a glittering creative resume:
"Managaha Island", "Crying Fist", "Improper Trading"...
He is good at portraying tough guy-type characters and stories, and has been nominated for various Korean film awards and won the Blue Dragon Award for Best Director for "Veteran".
The film is set in Morocco, using a large number of local actors to create a shocking war scene.
The most exciting scene in the film is when the Embassy of the Dprk and The Rokkinese decide to drive through the siege to the airport, using layers of books to cover the car to prevent bullets, rushing through the gun-streaked city and rushing to the last chance to escape.
Machine-gun fire, pages scattered along the way with the speed of the vehicle, metaphorically war tore civilization apart, and the remaining civilization became the last barrier to protect life.
The events in the story really took place in the 1991 Civil Unrest in Somalia.
The North Korean ambassador, who was attacked by the rebels, asked the South Korean ambassador for help, and eventually the South Korean ambassador led the North Korean ambassador to board an Italian plane and successfully fled Somalia.
Due to ideological and political system problems, this assistance was not recorded in any documents, but was only dictated by South Korean ambassador Kang Shin-sheng.
This is a true history that cannot be recorded, but it can only be told by the side that experienced it, and the reality is as ironic as the movie, as a sentence in the film says:
Sometimes, there are two truths.
Focusing on the historical pain of the division between the two Koreas and creating a thrilling war scene, "Mogadishu" created a "wolf warrior" effect in South Korea, and under the patriotic feelings, the film ranked first at the box office for 21 years.
In the end, can this film replicate the success of "Parasite" and impact the Oscars again?
Let's look at it first.