When a bitter truth being told to the world beautifully - movie called 'Dogani'

Recently in South Korea, if you often search through, say like Naver, or something Korean, you would notice in the news column there are A LOT of articles made from a recent Gong Yoo movie, 'DOGANI'. Frankly said this is my first time watching a Korean movie directly from the theatre. No subtitle. JUST MOVIE WITH FULL KOREAN. which i am so lack of it.

도가니 포스터! 

But anyway i took the bet and watch it anyway. Because it was a big thing in Korea and everyone had recommended the film. Not purely because of the main actor, no. And you know what, we take the earliest show because it was cheaper then the later show.

... Means i got up really early (8 am) (and it's holiday guise, you know that was the hardest thing to do after you surf the internet and slept at 3 am), i didn't took any shower, i brush my teeth, and i go to the cinema. YES THAT IS happening.

I woke up pretty late actually so my friends left me and bought the ticket first. The thing is they also bough McD breakfast without actually having a heart to offer me some. So i actually sat in the cinema, half awake, attacked by hunger, and hearing Korean speaking alien-ish.

But anyway,
The movie IS GREAT. Luckily there are a lot of scene in hand sign language, so they put Korean subtitle. That is enough time for me to peek on a dictionary whenever an unidentified word shows up.

OK to wrap up the film,

Where it all happens

Dogani (도가니), or 'The Crucible' in English, is a movie based on a true story happened in 2000-2005. This movie itself is a adaption from a book based on the fact with the same title, Dogani, by Gong Ji Young written in 2009.

The main cast is Gong Yoo (Coffee Prince) acted as Kang In-Ho, an art teacher sent from Seoul to teach in a school for impaired students in Mujin. And in his teaching period he witnesses abusive treatment from the teachers. Not only physical, but also sexual abuse and it keeps on going for 5 years with no witnesses. Decided to help the student, he use every force he can to help the traumatic students and promised to punished those pedophiliac insane monsters.

Kang In-Ho uses hand language to communicate with the student 

Every Korean drama lovers must be familiar with Gong Yoo, as he is the main character in 2007 MBC drama together with Yoo Eun Hye, Coffee Prince (which i still watching it right now, don't blame me if I'm still a Gong Yoo maniac). And as an audience, i was pretty surprised how Gong Yoo could perfectly threw his comical-romantic character in this movie. Even though I'm watching Coffee Prince right now, i could see this man as a completely different person. His acting is also a crucial thing that make this movie stole the public spot light. But not only Gong Yoo, but the children actors are all AMAZING. Just how they could act like that????? I'm truly amazed by their awesome acts.

The main actors and the original writer :)

However, the ending of both movie and the reality is a bitter ending. The criminals didn't punished as they equally deserved. But rather too much lightly punished. And this is the controversies, even until now people are still fighting to protect these children right and start making online petition. One petition in Daum already exceed 400.000 signs.

Even though this movie based on a true story, both the book and movie didn't mention the real location, instead they made up a district name, in this case, it's called Mujin. This story actually really happening in a school in Gwangju, a district pretty much close to Seoul. And luckily i did heard what my professor been teaching, apparently in South Korea, telling a news with real name (person / companies / district names / etc) could make the victim sue you. And even though all the reader knew who is it, and they could search it easily on the internet, still using a real name is somewhat forbidden. Hem. New knowledge huh?

To concludes all the blabbers, the point is, THIS MOVIE IS A MUST WATCH. And also this movie is being screened at BIFF (Busan International Film Festival). I really hope this film got big, and make people realized how child abuse, primarily to disabled people, is really not a humane act.

But we might have to wait for the English subtitle to really understand what really happening. Because i totally lost my soul when the court scene started. Don't understand every single words being told, really. Still it's a worth watching film!



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