Before watching "The Defender", I also watched movies like "The Furnace", and since then, I have admired the courage of Korean filmmakers. It is quite difficult for a film that exposes social injustice and the ugly face of the government to be released, at least in my country. Anyone can imagine how difficult and dangerous it would be to openly confront the whole system as the embodiment of justice.
In the first part of the film, a lot of energy and time were spent to pave the way for the growth experience of the protagonist Song Yuxi (Song Kanghao), from a poor student with only high school education, to successfully passing the judicial examination to become a judge, and then to riding the trend of the times. A tax lawyer with a strong business sense, the film seems to be trying to present a selfish, money-seeking, out-and-out bastard. But it must not be ignored, the tenacity and determination hidden under this appearance. (The protagonist is still doing his own thing firmly under the cynicism of others and the contempt of his peers, and going to eat soup and rice every day also shows the protagonist's emphasis on love and righteousness, laying the foundation for the later life reversal). If you think about the preparations made by the director for this subtle story, you can see the director's good intentions.
The film's turning point comes after the protagonist's benefactor's son, Park Jin-woo (Ren Si-wan), is arrested as a "red element". The South Korean authorities sent police officer Cha Dong-young, who is quite good at dealing with "red elements", to take over the case (because of his father's death in a riot, so he hated "red elements" deeply), which is undoubtedly the beginning of the feature film.
Song Yuxi was also completely awakened at this time. He took out the perseverance he used to fight for his family back then (which was set against the "never give up" that he once engraved on the wall), and vowed to take his benefactor's life. The son was rescued. In the next few scenes, I stayed up all night to analyze the incident and then asked my former boss to be a defender, and said the touching sentence "I will never give up"; I despised the prosecutor who was used as a puppet by interests and power; I was alone One person defended Park Jinyu and other students; risked his life to find the place where the police tortured confessions; and charged Cha Dongying and others with crimes full of anger (this is the part that moved me the most in the whole film, and I must pay tribute to Song Kangho's acting skills! Song Kangho , Choi Min-sik, Kim Yoon-suk, three uncles with the same style are really Korean national treasures), all successfully brought out the audience's sense of justice without reservation.
However, the reality is cruel. Song Yuxi still failed to defeat the regime that covered the sky with one hand. Under the instigation of Cha Dongying, the soldiers who testified in court at the risk of their lives were taken away as deserters, and their testimony was also invalidated by the judge and deleted. Go, Song Yuxi loses everything. Fortunately, under the negotiation of the defense, Zhenyu was sentenced to three years and is expected to be released sooner. Song Yuxi was arrested and prosecuted in the memorial service he later led (for a student in this incident), and the film left a heartwarming ending, that is, 99 of the 144 lawyers in Busan acted as defenders for Song Yuxi. , while the prosecutor was sitting alone with a stunned young man. This may be a solidarity with the reality of the director or the conscience of the audience.
After the whole film is over, it is inevitable that people will be moved, and the empty sense of justice in our hearts seems to burst out all at once. We are all willing to contribute to justice, and then only the brave can really reach the end, and not everyone has the courage to stand on their own. But justice must not lack every meager power. It seems powerless, but it can gather sand into a tower, and water droplets can penetrate it. It is exactly what Zhenyu once taught Song Yuxi: "Touching an egg with a rock may seem vulnerable, but no matter how hard a rock is, it is dead, no matter how fragile an egg is, it is alive, and the stone will eventually turn into sand, and Eggs give birth to life, and eventually they will cross the rock."
Beating the rock with an egg is by no means what a fool does, but a brave man!
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