action, Ha Jung-woo, Hijack 1971, Im Se-mi, Jeong Ye-jin, Kim Chul-yoon, Kim Dong-wook, Kim Seong-han, Moon Woo-jin, movies, reviews, South Korea, Sung Dong-il, true crime, Yeo Jin-goo
July 5, 2024
by Carla Hay
Directed by Kim Seong-han
Korean with subtitles
Culture Representation: Taking place in South Korea and North Korea in 1971 (and briefly in 1969), the action film “Hijack 1971” (based on real events) features an all-Asian cast of characters representing the working-class and middle-class.
Culture Clash: A disgraced military airline pilot in South Korea comes back from a hiatus to co-pilot a commercial flight, only to have the flight hijacked by a terrorist who is sympathetic to North Korean politics.
Culture Audience: “Hijack 1971” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners and suspenseful, action-packed hijack movies.
“Hijack 1971” delivers everything that viewers can expect from a high-octane, well-acted thriller about a plane being hijacked in the air. The fact that this movie is based on a true story makes it more interesting. “Hijack 1971” does a very good job of showing the human stories behind this terrifying experience.
Directed by Kim Seong-han and written by Kim Kyung-chan, “Hijack 1971” is based on real events, but the names of the characters have been changed to be different from the real-life people. The movie begins on December 11, 1969, by showing a fateful event that has a profound effect on the movie’s main protagonist. Tae-in (played by Ha Jung-woo), who is a compassionate and friendly, works for a South Korean Air Force unit that is in charge of protecting commercial aircraft. This character is based on the real-life Park Wan-gyu.
On this day, Tae-in and his younger pilot colleague Choi Dong-cheol (played by Kim Dong-wook) are patrolling in the air above South Korea, when they see that a Korean Air Lines YS-11 plane going from Gangneung for Seoul has been hijacked. The hijackers took over the NAMC YS-11-125 aircraft and forced it to fly to Pyongyang, North Korea.
During this hijacking, Tae-in could see inside the hijacked plane and noticed that his supervisor Seo Min-soo (played by Choi Kwang-il) was piloting the plane without his co-pilot. Tae-in then makes the decision to not follow military protocol to shoot at the plane’s engine, in order to scare the hijackers. Tae-in’s reasoning is that he didn’t want to do anything that would anger the hijackers, who could then harm the innocent people on the plane.
Because the hijackers got away with taking the plane with hostages to North Korea, Tae-in and Dong-cheol are blamed for it, and they both get suspended. However, Tae-in gets a harsher scolding for it because he is a more experienced pilot and has a higher military ranking than Dong-cheol. Over the next several days, after tense negotiations, 39 of the 50 hostages were let go and were allowed to return to South Korea.
Tae-in becomes depressed over this suspension and begins to doubt his abilities as a pilot who can keep people safe. His supportive wife Moon-young (played by Im Se-mi) is the only person who reminds him that he did save lives, but Tae-in wants to win back the respect of his peers. Tae-in gets a chance to prove his worth when he is assigned to be the first officer pilot for a civilian Korean Air Lines on January 23, 1971. The aircraft is Hotel-Lima 5212. In real life, the aircraft was Fokker F27 Friendship 500.
The captain of the plane is Lee Gyu-sik (played by Sung Dong-il), who is calm and professional. Gyu-sik is based on the real-life Lee Kang-heun. Gyu-sik is aware that Tae-in is coming back from a suspension, but he is not judgmental and thinks Tae-in has a right to prove his merit on this flight. Meanwhile, a few of the flight attendants in the back are gossiping about Tae-in because they know why he was suspended.
The people on this airplane soon find out that there’s a hijacker of this flight: His name is Yong-dae (played by Yeo Jin-goo), a lone terrorist who in his early 20s. He has crude homemade hand grenades and a gun as weapons. The Yong-dae character is based on the real-life Kim Sang-tae.
Just like the hijacking in 1969, this motive for this hijacking is for the plane to go to North Korea. During the course of the movie, Yong-dae expresses his disillusionment with South Korea’s capitalist/democratic government and says that Koreans are better off living a North Korean communist way of life. Yong-dae mentions that his brother was one of the hijackers in the 1969 flight, and he says his brother is a hero in North Korea because of this hijacking. Flashbacks in the movie show why Yong-dae has become such an angry and violent terrorist.
“Flight 1971” has tension-filled suspense from the beginning of this hijacking until the end. The movie’s cinematography and visual effects are superb at immersing viewers in this experience. Some of the camera work is meant to evoke feelings of claustrophobia and dizziness, especially in scenes where the plane gets out of the pilots’ control.
Yong-dae is a loose cannon who frequently storms into the cockpit. He made his first hijacking move on the flight by throwing a hand grenade at the cockpit door. During Yong-dae’s attacks inside and outside the cockpit, plane captain Gyu-sik is injured in his eyes and becomes blind, possibly permanently. It should also come as no surprise that Tae-in also gets wounded. The flight attendant who is the main focus of the story is Lee Ok-soon (played by Chae Soo-bin), who does her best to try to keep the passengers calm.
Most of the passengers are anonymous. Those who have names in the movie are not given much of backstory. There’s an elderly woman from a farm who brings a chicken on board with her. A man who works as a prosecutor is traveling with his blind mother. An English teacher named Lee Soo-hee (played by Jeong Ye-jin), who works at Woochang Middle School, is accompanying a student named Lee Han-bong (played by Moon Woo-jin) as his adult guardian for the flight. A man named Nam-il (played by Kim Chul-yoon) is a newlywed who is on this plane flight to meet up his wife for their honeymoon
The main focus of “Hijack 1971” is on how the hero pilots (especially Tae-in) handle this crisis caused by this violent terrorist. It’s a test of their physical and emotional strength. In his performance as Tae-in, Ha does a very good job of portraying the inner turmoil of Tae-in, who feels had additional responsibility to prove he can stop this hijacking when he was deemed a “failure” the previous time he had a chance to stop a hijacking.
Tae is still reeling from criticism that he “wasn’t brave enough” in his previous hijacking incident. He now has to make split-second, life-or-death decisions now that he is in the middle of another hijacking. All of the cast members capably handle their roles, but Tae-in is the character that the movie reveals the most about, in order for viewers to feel the most invested in this character. Whether or not viewers know the real-life outcome of this hijacking, “Hijack 1971” is still worth seeing for this unforgettable story.
Sony Pictures International released “Hijack 1971” in select U.S. cinemas on July 5, 2024.