Blue Swallow

Apparently a controversial film when it was released in Korea in December of 2005, Blue Swallow is a well made big budget picture about Korea's first female pilot, Park Kyung-won, during Japan's occupation of Korea in the 1920's and 30's. Controversial because Park Kyung-won's success was due in no small part to the Japanese military, and that she was seen as a collaborator to the Japanese. Also because when the film came out, critics saw it as a revisionist history, tying to put a positive spin on her career. In fact, the movie makes an effort to show that things weren't all black and white. Park Kyung-won's dream was to be able to fly, politics and affiliations did not come into play until much later. The flying schools were all run by the Japanese, so she went to where she could be trained. The movie does show that she seeks financial support from the Korean community, but it there wasn't much -- so naturally, support comes from a former rival and now friend, who is a daughter of a high ranking Japanese official. Aside from the overly melodramatic and swarmy intro of Park Kyung-won as a child and seeing her first plane flying overhead, the movie is a solid, well written tale, giving enough information to non Korean audiences to understand the historical and political contexts. The sequences of her flight training and competition between rival schools are intense and dramatic -- good CGI for a lot of the flying sequences (remember these are biplanes). Halfway through the film the mood changes when her boyfriend's friend, a reporter, assassinates the boyfriend's father and a couple of Japanese officials. Park Kyung-won and her boyfriend (Ji-hyuk) are taken into custody and tortured. She is released when he admits guilt (even though he wasn't), and is given a choice about pursuing her dream, which was to fly back to Korea solo, then to Manchuria. It comes at a price -- she embraces the Japanese flag (in photo ops), and is reviled in her home country. This is a Hollywood-like film (almost like the bio pics that were done in the 1930s or 50s), that outdoes a lot of contemporary US films. I enjoyed it especially because, embellished history or not, it gives one some insight into another country's past. Korea has been releasing a lot of compelling movies in the past 10 years, and this is a very good one to watch. Recommended.