The Man Standing Next
Woo Min-ho’s tense drama is set against the backdrop of real-life political turmoil in South Korea, 1979.
Last year’s film industry awards season was dominated by Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite. His film bulldozed through the traditional award ceremony calendar ticking off new milestones at every turn. First South Korean film to win the Palme d’Or at Cannes – check. First South Korean film to be nominated in categories other than Film Not in the English Language at the BAFTAs – done, winning for Best Original Screenplay. First South Korean film to win the Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language film – completed it, mate. On 9th February 2020, the world watched on as Parasite won the Oscar for Best Picture at the 92nd Academy Awards, becoming the first foreign language film to do so. Although lauded in industry circles – with notable endorsements from the likes of Martin Scorsese – this was a watershed moment for South Korean cinema, shining a brighter spotlight on the country’s film industry.
Woo Min-ho’s The Man Standing Next is this year’s South Korean entry for consideration in the International Film category at the Academy Awards. The film recreates the real-life events in the 40 days leading up to the assassination of South Korean president Park Chung-hee in 1979, told through the lens of the director of the Korean Central Intelligence Agency (KCIA), Kim Gyu-pyeong. Kim, played by Lee Byung-hun, is effectively second in command to President Park, who has overseen 18 years of dictatorial rule in the country. When an ex-intelligence official testifies in front of the United States Congress, Kim is sent to Washington DC to plug the leak and obtain the defector’s memoir, which contains details of the underhand political manoeuvres used by the KCIA to quash opposition to President Park’s regime. This trip to the United States triggers a domino effect of politicking and power grabbing that ultimately results in Kim assassinating his own president, the man he has stood alongside and served for years.
The work of Jean-Pierre Melville, specifically his neo noir films with 60s icon Alain Delon, appears to be a strong influence on Woo’s film. Lee Byung-hun’s Kim is a slick, stone-faced operator much like Delon’s iconic Jef Costello in Le Samouraï. It can’t be a coincidence that Kim dresses in the exact outfit that is synonymous with Melville’s 1967 noir classic – the camel trench coat, carefully buttoned to the top, the fedora, the chain smoking. Lee’s profile could even be mistaken for a young Delon in certain shots of the film. A sequence midway through The Man Standing Next also mirrors Le Cercle Rouge, another of Melville and Delon’s collaborations, as the wooded countryside outside of Paris is the scene of an attempted escape.
Clockwise from top left: Alain Delon in Jean-Pierre Melville’s Le Samouraï; Lee Byung-hun’s Kim (left) in an identical outfit; Delon (right) in Melville’s Le Cercle Rouge
We race through a frantic series of events containing a revolving cast of high-ranking officials – President Park, KCIA director Kim, ex-KCIA director Park, Governor Kim (yes – confusing), a security director, a chief of staff, a wiretap expert, intelligence agents, ambassadors, assassins, and the CIA. It can be tough to keep up with each key player and how their actions interlink, certainly without any foundational historical knowledge on any of the people or events. What is clear – and perhaps intentional given the film’s tendency to skip quickly through a series of events – is that everyone is plotting against each other, sometimes opposing factions are even racing to do the same thing in order to achieve a different end goal. We learn that there is a belief that all South Korean leaders are cursed, as Kim ominously speaks of the sitting president’s residence – foreshadowing that a head of state ‘can’t get out alive’.
Kim’s foreshadowing may imply a pre-meditative decision to kill President Park, but the film is never definitive on the motivations for the assassination. As is customary after watching a film based on true events, the post-match Wikipedia trawl reveals that there is still debate over Kim’s motive for killing President Park, and Woo includes references to all of the proposed theories. Had Woo picked one of the theories and told the story through this particular lens, it may result in a deeper connection to Kim and his rationale. Instead, we are fed details supporting each theory and need to decide for ourselves – was Kim jealous of Park’s relationship with one of his rivals? Was Kim a revolutionary, hell-bent on destroying Park’s dictatorship? Did Kim see himself as president? Did the CIA push him to do it? Or was it completely impulsive, without any pre-meditation? Woo possibly believed it was appropriate to leave all cards on the table, given there is no generally accepted theory, but it does make it more difficult to invest in the eventual outcome without having enough to decide whether you are rooting for an anti-hero with the right intentions or something less satisfying.
Regardless of motive, the climactic assassination scene is the highlight of The Man Standing Next – not because of any underlying fetish for violence or the death of a head of state – but because Woo expertly builds tension to what the viewer knows is about to happen. The scene uses the same technique as seen in Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Birdman, using CGI and camera trickery to mimic a one-shot effect that lasts several minutes. We follow Kim as he exits and re-enters the room to ensure he has finished the job, before leaving the President’s residence with his allies. A moment of indecision proves costly for Kim, and we learn that his foreshadowing was not only applicable to South Korean presidents – when leaving the head of states’ residence, ultimately you can’t get out alive.