There is a historical drama to begin soon in Korea. I wish I was in Korea to watch this and that my Korean was good enough to enjoy it:

“The 40 episodes cover the period from the morning of president Park Chung-hee’s assassination to the handover of power from Chun Doo-hwan to Roh Tae-woo.” But the first nine episodes concentrate on the last months of 1979, from Park’s assassination on Oct. 26, 1979 to the Dec. 12 putsch. The 1980 Gwangju Uprising gets four episodes to itself. “We will focus on the New Military Group’s preparations and decision-making process in brutally putting down the uprising.”

One or two episodes each will deal with other incidents like various financial scandals, the shooting down of a KAL airliner over Soviet airspace, the Rangoon bombing, occupation by demonstrators of the U.S. Cultural Center in Seoul, sexual torture inflicted on female protestors by police in Bucheon in 1986, Geumgang Dam, the torture and killing of collegian Park Jong-chol in 1987 and the June 29 Declaration of the same year that forced democratic change.

◆ The characters

The “hero” is Chun Doo-hwan, played by Lee Deok-hwa. “His negative side is well known, but he had a charm about him, like a boss who takes money from this person and that person to buy booze for his underlings in order to keep those around him happy,” Lee said. “We will show this as central to his attraction.” Roh Tae-woo (played by Seo In-seok), on the other hand, is depicted as an introverted, calculating fellow. “There is evidence if you look at Chun’s autobiography, where he says whatever he starts, Roh finishes,” Im said.

I would be very interested to see how the drama juggles accuracy, popular impressions of the recent past, and the views of the writers themselves. I’m sure there will be lots of interesting commentary floating around about this. I hope I can live to see the day when China permits the showing of a historical drama giving 4 episodes to Tiananmen in 1989.