Jagadangchak: shidaejeongshin kwa hyeonshilchamyeo

Self Referential Traverse: Zeitgeist and Engagement
Seven years after his wonderful satire, "Capitalist Manifesto", Kim Sun is back in the Forum with another brazen attack on Korean politics. Jagadangchak means "self-contradiction," but contradictory seems to be the least harmful adjective for Lee Myung-Bak’s government. The first part of the film takes the president to task in the form of a family sitcom, in which the daughter drives her government-friendly father crazy with her arguments: That, for example, Lee had so much success as the mayor of Seoul with the restoration of the Cheonggye Stream that he is now, against better judgment, pursuing a disastrous project to build a canal across Korea from the Yellow Sea to Busan. However, the main victim of this irreverent film is the Korean police mascot Podori, who would like nothing more than a pair of legs and goes about getting them in a pretty contemptible manner. Although Podori learns quite a bit about love and sex, he remains powerless against his enemies, the Styrofoam-munching rats. As the plot unravels, Kim’s enjoyably anarchistic work becomes more and more like a wild happening. The laugh is always at the loser’s expense.
by Kim Sun
with Podori, Jung Ayoung, Kang Suk
South Korea 2011 73’

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