As we all know, Korean movies have never shied away from official corruption, power struggles, power-for-money transactions, conflicts of interest and other evils in national politics. For example, "The Insider" which exposed the internal struggle of political corruption in South Korea, "The Defender" adapted from the "Gwangju Incident" and "Buma Incident", "Improper Deal" which reflected the conflict of interests of prosecutors, police and informants, and "The Defender" which exposed the internal struggle of political corruption in South Korea. "Moby Dick" about the corruption of South Korea's senior political class, and more. The brilliance of Korean films lies in their ability to combine social events involving the public with politics. This may also be a manifestation of Koreans’ enthusiasm for political activities due to geography, history and culture. The same is true for the movie "Flu" released in 2013.
From a political perspective, when a harmful public security incident occurs in a region or country, as political groups or individuals with concentrated power, they have the ability to deploy various domestic and foreign resources and exert their influence on affairs. As long as the ideas and methods are scientific enough, the thinking is unified, and the management department functions step by step, it can coordinate and respond to problems, eliminate harm, appease people's hearts, and achieve the goal of "politics for good". But for Korean movies that like to pick on political sores and expose political evils, "disaster" and "political manipulation" have become a good combination. The story of "Influenza" is not as simple as "the virus is discovered, the virus is transmitted, people are infected or die, the treatment is discovered, and the virus is defeated", but the political operation conveyed in it.
?A group of young people from a Southeast Asian country were preparing to smuggle themselves into South Korea. One of the smugglers had started coughing, and the virus started its journey to South Korea. After arriving in South Korea, the two brothers who came to take in the stowaways found that all the people in the container had died of illness, and only one brother was still alive.
The two took the only surviving boy into the city, but the boy escaped halfway. The younger of the two brothers who took in the stowaways began to cough and have a fever, apparently infected with the virus. So the elder brother took his younger brother to the pharmacy to buy medicine. The virus begins to spread through the air along with cough droplets. Salespersons, children, students and others in pharmacies are all spared.
My brother's condition gradually worsened and he coughed up blood, so he came to the hospital. Doctors failed to save her and immediately discovered that this was a highly contagious virus. The elder brother also clashed with the doctor over his younger brother's death. By this time, the virus had spread throughout the city.
The city where the epidemic broke out is called "Buntang". Because this was a public health emergency, the head of the region's governance committee, a South Korean congressman, immediately appeared in the story. Because the virus is so severe, the doctor recommended that the pond be isolated. However, the congressman is worried about the various international conferences held in Bundang every year. If they are quarantined, it will cause huge losses to Bundang. They also rely on naive "common sense" to say, "Now is the influenza season" and "foot-and-mouth disease". I’m not that nervous.” The implication is that everything is not that serious. In short, this kind of virus that can kill people is not within the scope of congressmen's thinking; and the doctors' advice has also been criticized by congressmen. The arrogance, contempt, and domineering attitude of possessing political power are all evident.
With the explosive spread of the virus, many infected people became ill from time to time and fell to the ground. Traffic in the city was chaotic, and hospitals were overcrowded... The entire city suddenly lost control due to people being infected with the virus.
At this critical moment, the country’s prime minister is still hesitant about whether to announce the spread of the virus to the public and whether the announcement will cause social panic. The MP in charge of Bundang is still worried that politicians from other political parties will pull his hair if he declares a quarantine. In the face of disaster, the struggles and contradictions of elite politics begin to be exposed. This is not the same thing as the democratic political awareness that ordinary people in South Korea have. It was not until the president arrived that Buntang was declared quarantined. At the same time, news of the spread of the virus was also released to the public. But there is no mention of how to deal with the virus. "There is currently no treatment" and "the death toll may be tens of thousands". These words are undoubtedly creating "panic".
It is good to publicize the facts externally, but in the absence of countermeasures, the opportunity for ordinary people to understand and support the government's actions is gone. People are in panic. The movie casts light on the seemingly aloof and decisive top Korean politicians.
Next, there is political cheating.
People in a state of panic rushed to grab items in the supermarket, resulting in physical conflicts. Some people also collapsed in the supermarket due to the virus attack.
However, this disorderly situation attracted violent stops from the police, and the supermarket suddenly became a place of fighting and fighting. The incident itself is nothing more than people buying things in supermarkets to cope with the isolation caused by the virus. In the face of disasters, lack of preparation and chaos, the direct use of state machinery is invisibly equivalent to the suppression of riots. A small incident exposed the weakness of political ability.
The next step is the intervention of the US government. As we all know, South Korea's status in international politics, military outsourcing, and diplomacy depend on the face of the United States. This is not as good as our neighbor North Korea, who lives a simple life. Some people joked that the "THAAD" system is like a fly, and Koreans have to eat it even if they hold their noses. In the film, due to an outbreak of viral influenza in the Bundang area of ??South Korea, the United States was accidentally attracted. This is obviously not an international rescue, but a direct allusion to the United States' political interference in South Korea.
In order to prevent the spread of the virus, a special quarantine area was established at the suggestion of the United States. What is surprising is that the quarantine area is under military control. If there are outsiders who disobey the control, they will be dealt with with "guns". Treating illnesses and saving people, but using military power reflects the sharp opposition between the needs of the state and ordinary people. At this critical moment, the country did not show any political sentiments to care for the common people, but only had one belief - to prevent the spread of the virus. As long as this goal is achieved, one can ignore the life and death of ordinary people and use whatever means necessary. Therefore, people who die from illness become "garbage" and are disposed of.
This seems incredible, but it is a commonly used authoritarian method in Korean politics. In a crisis, for the sake of national politics, ordinary people will be crushed by the state machine for their own interests, even if they are innocent. Historically, the "Gwangju Incident" is the best proof of the conflict between Korean political rule and civilians.
In the film, the political leaders sacrificed the pond to save more people in order to take the overall situation into consideration. This rigid political operation in response to crises inevitably triggered larger-scale civilian conflicts and riots in the city. The conflict between civilians and the government has escalated again. The country had to deploy more troops and force to suppress. However, there is no trace of how the government and medical institutions prevent and treat the virus. What's left in the city is riots, chaos, plus fighting and killing.
Bundang people’s distrust of the government caused by the flu eventually escalated to the point where “the government will save us only if we go to Seoul to demonstrate and let Seoulites get infected.” This scene seems to be a disguised interpretation of the street politics of the "Gwangju Incident". Not to be outdone, the United States even dispatched the US Air Force to South Korea to bomb the demonstrators.
Perhaps the power of human nature awakened people's confidence in defeating the virus, which made the South Korean head of state realize his conscience and finally withstood the pressure from the United States.
In the film, "flu" is only the outer core of the story. The real purpose is to expose the low-end operations of Korean politics through chaos and conflict, so that political leaders and the people know the existence of virus antibodies, and use small The way the girl blocked the army from firing was very dramatic and abrupt.
A similar way of telling stories has also appeared in "The Monster of the Han River". In short, "Flu" is actually a "political film".