There have been a number of great taxi-based movies around the world (including in the United States, Iran, and Japan), and with Jang Hoon’s 2017 (somewhat fictionalized) historical action drama A Taxi Driver, South Korea joins the list. Across cultures, a cab driver is the avatar of the everyman, the yeoman who roams the streets shuttling passengers of all types to and from all the nooks and crannies of a city. There are few living actors who can play a regular joe better than the renowned Song Kang-ho, a character actor that has stumbled into carving out a remarkable career as one of South Korea’s most accomplished leading men. Seeing Song’s name in the credits or face in a movie trailer is an assurance that the film will be interesting, inquisitive, and relatable.
Song plays Mr. Kim, a widowed Seoul taxi driver who is struggling in 1980 South Korea to make ends meet to take care of his young daughter. Beaten down by his circumstances, he’s got a cynical and opportunistic outlook on life, but also has a soft spot that can be gotten to. When he snags a roundtrip fare taking a German reporter, Peter Hitzpeter, to the southern city of Gwangju, he’s overjoyed. Kim is a simple man, focused on making a living and is barely aware of the protests and political turmoil that takes place around him, but he soon finds himself in the middle of the Gwangju Uprising.
It turns out that the government (or more accurately, the military powers that be) have censored all news coming out of the area and pushed their own propaganda instead. Hitzpeter’s reporting, on 16mm film, ends up being one of the few hopes of revealing the shocking acts and atrocities taking place in Gwangju to the outside world. We are used to seeing reporters play these roles, and A Taxi Driver is a wonderful journalism film, but we also get to see the critical role that Mr. Kim and the other taxi drivers play in this story. They are the unsung heroes, as becomes apparent when the end credits roll and you find out just what happened with Hitzpeter and Kim in real life.
The film evolves and takes a hard left turn in the second and third acts, with the suspense and tension of a spy movie at times, and the drama and scale of a war epic at others. In both journalism movies and war movies, bravery and courage are important traits in times of need, regardless of one’s occupation. What results is inspiring both the characters within the story as well as the viewer watching the film, and here such acts of bravery are extraordinary. Kim’s arc is an astounding one, as he learns more about his fellow countrymen and the difficulties they face, as well as his own choices that he’s forced to make as his perspective on the government and protesters begins to shift.
One of the sequences that best exemplifies how thrilling and unique A Taxi Driver is is a particular chase sequence. It is intense, dramatic, and unforgettable, and despite being almost laughably low-speed, it’s also almost unbearably high stakes. It almost makes you wonder if taxi drivers coming together might be more exciting than the Avengers. What helps give the film heft, of course, is the fact that this is all based on real-life events and people. Jang always ensures that his characters all feel like real people, which in turn makes you all the more invested in what happens. By the end, you’ll finally feel like you can take a breath again, and you might just look at your next Uber driver a little differently.
Now streaming on Amazon Prime.
