Unbowed

Unbowed is based on a true story. One day in 2007, a math professor named Kim Myung-ho took a crossbow and confronted a judge as he was returning home to his apartment. Kim had been fired by his university for pointing out an error committed by his colleagues on the school’s entrance exam. Suing for reinstatement, he lost his case after a series of what he believed were highly biased rulings by the judge. His anger finally boiling over, he took a crossbow and waited in the dark stairway of the judge’s apartment building.
Kim says that he only wanted to scare the judge, and never intended violence. (Interviewed for a recent LA Times article, Kim said, “Judges believe they are above the law. They’re unchallenged, like gangsters, fearing no one. I thought this judge needed to feel fear.”) At any rate, a scuffle ensued, an arrow was fired, and the judge was apparently hurt. Kim was charged with attempted murder, and found himself once again at the mercy of Korea’s judicial system.
This film, based on interviews, news articles and court records (and slightly embellished — a point that would later cause controversy), depicts Kim’s trial for attempted murder and the efforts of a struggling attorney to defend him. If the professor had felt cynical about biased judgments in his first trial, this one — in which the victim himself was a judge — proved to be far more dramatic. With Kim more or less giving up any hope of receiving a fair trial, he takes this opportunity to launch his own legal and moral assault on the courts.
Kim is played by veteran actor Ahn Sung-ki (Radio Star). He once was known for roles like this, and it’s tremendously exciting to see him once again depict this sort of idealistic, fiercely committed intellectual willing to stand up and speak truth to power. Ahn portrays him not as some kind of persecuted saint, but as a cantankerous, difficult man with faults of his own. Nonetheless, when he goes head-to-head with the judge assigned to his case, one has to resist the urge to stand up and cheer.
Director Chung Ji-young (White Badge) has also assembled a talented group of other actors to fill out the cast. Park Won-sang is great as the attorney arguing on Kim’s behalf, and trying to keep him under control. Although his character arc is somewhat predictable, the way he is played is always engaging. Park’s character finds an important ally in a journalist played by Kim Ji-ho, and their close (too close?) partnership is one of the film’s other highlights. One also has to mention the performance of Moon Sung-keun (Jealousy Is My Middle Name), whose icy portrayal of an arrogant, contemptuous judge is unforgettable.
By sheer coincidence, Unbowed was released just four months after the film Silenced — another blistering critique of Korean’s court system — rode a wave of viewer outrage to box office glory. It seemed highly unlikely that lightning would strike twice, but apparently, ordinary citizens’ anger at the judicial system was enough to support two blockbuster hits. Despite its very modest budget and lack of popular young stars, Unbowed touched off another media firestorm and would ultimately sell an astonishing 3.4 million tickets.
This came as a particular vindication for Chung Ji-young, famous for his iconic works of the early 1990s, but more recently written off by most observers as a has-been director. Without making any attempt to copy the style of the younger generation of directors, Chung has made an entertaining, forceful work that successfully carries the idealism and social concerns of 1990s Korean cinema into the present. The widespread popularity of this film, which out-grossed nearly all of the mega-budgeted genre films of the previous year, has upended many people’s most basic assumptions about the Korean audience. With Chung already planning out his next feature, it seems a career has been reborn.