In-Flight Film Time: Default 국가부도의 날 (2018) Korean

Kim Hye Soo, Yoo Ah In, Heo Jun Ho, Jo Woo Jin

Movie rating: 7/10     Neck score: A+

I'll admit that I chose to watch this one because from the tiny poster on the tiny plane screen, Kim Hye Soo looked like Soo Ae (who I love). Also, it had Yoo Ah In, so that was another plus. Basically the cast alone kept me watching. It's about the IMF Crisis in 1997 when Korea almost went bankrupt. We have the four major players: Kim Hye Soo who plays an analyst at the Bank of Korea who has predicted the crisis and been ignored for years and is finally getting heard. Yoo Ah In who is a bank teller for the Bank of Korea who has also predicted the crisis, but quits his job to instead make money off of the situation. Then we have Jo Woo Jin who plays the Vice-Minister of Finance who also wants to take advantage of the situation to reform the economy and take power. Then we have Heo Jun Ho, who is a factory owner who gets screwed over by the crisis and starts losing everything.


Since is was a bit of a bio flick it was definitely hard to watch because it's not like our hero Han Shi Hyun (Kim Hye Soo) can swoop in and miraculously save the day. She is ultimately still ignored, as the IMF comes in and the evil Americans use it for their own selfish gains, forcing the economy open and establishing the basis for the conglomerate powered economy of today where the rich get richer and the poor get poorer and foreigners can do hostile takeovers and rule the economy. I don't doubt that is what happened, although in maybe a less dramatized way. Having studied history long enough, this sounds exactly what would happen. What made my little historian heart happy (in a bitter way) was that they tied it to current events and how history repeats itself. It was a call for us to not repeat the same mistakes of history and allow such crises to happen again. Or to at least not handle them in the same way. It definitely left you bitter when you saw everyone who got everything they wanted from the crisis, who took advantage of it, and left everyone else behind. It was definitely a movie designed to make you angry. It did that well. But hopefully with that anger comes change.