Be warned that this is a film that may very well wear you out emotionally, but the payoff couldn't be more worth it.
#A taxi driver 2017 streeming movie
As the two leads encounter several fully-realized characters throughout the story - many of whom embody qualities like innocence, selflessness, and a kind of everyday heroism that only appears in the most trying circumstances - "A Taxi Driver" almost turns into another movie entirely. The juxtaposition of humor against dark moments becomes completely flipped on its head, where we're now given the briefest taste of everyday life to further emphasize the crushing reality that the citizens of Gwangju find themselves in.ĭespite an uneven grasp of pacing that makes "A Taxi Driver" feel longer than it actually is, I found myself completely unprepared for how moving this film ended up being. which cleverly puts us at odds with the mostly closed-off defense mechanisms of Kim. "A Taxi Driver" uses Kim's character to drive home some hard-hitting points about ambivalence and apathy in the face of fascism, ideas that feel just as sadly relevant today as it likely did during the actual events captured in the film.įilmmaker Jang Hoon's approach bounces between farce and horror, using every tool at his disposal to make sure that viewers are constantly in a state of feeling . Gwangju becomes the inescapable setting for much of the film's middle act(s), a nightmarish and almost post-apocalyptic city that can no longer provide a sense of security to the willfully oblivious Kim. This is when the film's first real tonal shift occurs, adding a simmering sense of foreboding and tension beneath the otherwise unassuming plot. This immediately puts the two individuals at odds, a grating dynamic that nonetheless leads to laughs as "A Taxi Driver" mines as much humor as it can from their cultural and language barriers on their long drive to the city.
We soon learn that Hinzpeter is a burnt-out reporter, looking to cover a story that really matters and willing to risk his very life to get the job done. Kim recklessly jumps at the chance to steal this money for himself, unknowingly tumbling in over his head to take Jürgen Hinzpeter (Thomas Kretschmann, known for "King Kong," "Avengers: Age of Ultron," and "Penny Dreadful: City of Angels") into the heart of South Korea's political unrest. The pivotal moment occurs when he overhears another driver mention that some foreigner is offering a large sum of money to be driven to Gwangju. Kim's antics to the inevitably stomach-churning horrors of fascism on display - a death knell for most movies, but a saving grace for this one. The film creeps right up to the line of becoming "tonally jarring" when it switches from Mr. Yet rather than put audiences through a torturous and one-note slog, "A Taxi Driver" grounds the proceedings in the surprisingly hilarious dynamic between taxi driver Kim Sa-bok and German reporter Jürgen Hinzpeter. This South Korean film chronicles the 1980 Gwangju Uprising, a momentous historical event that proved to be a significant stepping stone on the way to the nation's fight to get out from under the oppression of a brutal military coup. Not so with 2017's "A Taxi Driver," which couldn't possibly be more different from the usual (typically Oscar-bait) fare. The Pitch: Movies that attempt to cover such sensitive topics as a real-world massacre tend to be moody, unpleasant, and relentlessly grim. Where You Can Stream It: Amazon Prime, Hoopla
#A taxi driver 2017 streeming series
( Welcome to The Daily Stream, an ongoing series in which the /Film team shares what they've been watching, why it's worth checking out, and where you can stream it.)
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