The Fabricated Kim Tae-seong Case
In the film Ordinary Person, released on March 23, 2017, actor Son Hyun-joo plays Seong-jin, Jang Hyuk plays Gyu-nam, Kim Sang-ho plays Reporter Chu, and Jo Dal-hwan plays Kim Tae-seong.
After failing to catch the real serial killer known as “Balbari,” the police officer Seong-jin turns Kim Tae-seong into Balbari instead. The real Balbari is eventually caught, and Kim Tae-seong should be released, but Kim Tae-seong confesses to murder. Gyu-nam, an agent of the National Intelligence Service, hands Seong-jin the case file on Kim Tae-seong. In this way, Kim Tae-seong is fabricated into a serial killer.
Balbari’ is a slang term in South Korea used to refer to a sex offender.
Complicity and Resistance
Ordinary Person draws its power from the change in Seong-jin’s state of mind and makes the audience fully understand his position.
Reporter Chu tells Seong-jin that the corpse points to the real culprit and that the Kim Tae-seong case is a fabrication. However, this does not matter to Seong-jin. What matters to him is his son’s surgery and money. At one point, Seong-jin tells Gyu-nam that he will bark fiercely at him. He then removes Kim Tae-seong’s handcuffs and apologizes. In the end, this act of resistance comes back as retaliation.
Who Is an “Ordinary Person”?
There is a line in which Reporter Chu tells Seong-jin that he himself is an “ordinary person.” So who is an ordinary person? It is someone who is not like Gyu-nam or Vice Director Shin Yong-su. Seong-jin is also an ordinary person. The appearance of Gyu-nam in the ending seems to symbolize an unjust society. There is no post-credits scene in the film.
Commonalities Between Ordinary Person and 1987
I shortened “1987: When the Day Comes” to “1987.”
The film 1987 was released on December 27, 2017, nine months after the release of Ordinary Person. Both films are rated for viewers aged 15 and over, and they deal with the same subject matter and historical period. The shared subject is death by torture, and characters in both films chant the June Democratic Uprising slogan, “End the Constitution, Down with Dictatorship.” The June Uprising took place in June 1987.
Differences Between Ordinary Person and 1987
The two films show a stark contrast in audience numbers. Ordinary Person attracted 380,000 viewers, while 1987 drew 7.23 million. Why is there such a large difference? Compared to Ordinary Person, 1987 features more well-known actors. In addition, the occupations of the victims of death by torture are different. 1987 can be said to be more closely based on real events than Ordinary Person.