Somalia Archives – CULTURE MIX

Review: ‘Escape From Mogadishu,’ starring Kim Yoon-seok, Zo In-sung and Huh Joon-ho

August 27, 2021

by Carla Hay

Joung Man-sik, Kim So-jin and Kim Yoon-seok in “Escape From Mogadishu” (Photo courtesy of Well Go USA)

Directed by Ryoo Seung-wan

Korean, Somali and English with subtitles

Culture Representation: Taking place from November 1990 to January 1991, primarily in the Somali capital of Mogadishu and briefly in Kenya, the dramatic film “Escape From Mogadishu” features a cast of primarily Asian and African people (with a few white people) representing Korean government officials, their families and Somalis caught up in Somalia’s civil war.

Culture Clash: Government officials and diplomats from rival North Korea and South Korea are trapped in Mogadishu during a violent civil war outbreak, and the Koreans must decide if they should put aside their North Korean/South Korean conflicts to work together to escape from Mogadishu.

Culture Audience: “Escape From Mogadishu” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in watching tense political thrillers about international relations stories that are rarely told on screen.

A scene from in “Escape From Mogadishu” with Huh Joon-ho, pictured in front, second from left. (Photo courtesy of Well Go USA)

In the dramatic film “Escape From Mogadishu,” there are two types of political conflicts going on—a civil war in Somalia and a feud between North Korea and South Korea. This compelling and action-filled movie shows what happens with Koreans who are caught in the middle of these two conflicts. “Escape From Mogadishu” (directed by Ryoo Seung-wan) is fictional, but it could easily have been inspired by real events.

The beginning the movie —which takes place from November 1990 to January 1991—has a captioned statement explaining the tension that will be depicted. During this time, South Korea (a democratic country) and North Korea (a Communist country) had not been approved for United Nations membership. Somalia was a crucial deciding nation on the vote to approve membership. North Korea had been lobbying for Somalia’s United Nations membership vote since the early 1970s, while South Korea didn’t send any diplomats to Somalia until 1987.

In “Escape From Mogadishu,” two diplomatic leaders for South Korea and North Korea are bitter competitors, who are jockeying for power and influence with Somali government officials while Somalia is in the midst of a civil war. But when a violent outbreak in Mogadishu traps the two diplomats, their colleagues and their families, it forces the diplomats to decide if their North Korean/South Korean feuding can be overcome to work together for an escape, or if they should remain enemies and only concern themselves with helping their fellow citizens.

“Escape From Mogadishu” spends the first half of the movie establishing the main characters and showing how the North Korean/South Korean diplomat rivalry unfolds and becomes increasingly hostile. The movie is told mainly from the perspective of the South Koreans—chiefly, Ambassador Han Shin-sung (Kim Yoon-seok), a somewhat nervous and by-the-book diplomat, who arrives in Mogadishu with high hopes but some trepidation. Ambassador Han is accompanied by Secretary Gong Soo-chul (played by Joung Man-sik), a somewhat goofy and bumbling lackey.

The two diplomats meet up with Counselor Kang Dae-jin (played by Zo In-sung), an arrogant lawyer who will do whatever it takes to seal the United Nations deal for South Korea. For their lodging, they are all staying at a South Korean-owned diplomat building, along with Ambassador Han’s wife Kim Myung-hee (played by Kim So-jin), Clerk Jo Soo-jin (played by Kim Jae-hwa) and Clerk Park Ji-eun (played by Park Gyeong-hye). Because the building is owned by South Korea, this property ownership plays a role in what happens later in the movie, when it comes to who can be legally protected in the building.

There’s some comic relief in the beginning of the film when Ambassador Han expresses disapproval at the haphazard way that Counselor Kang has arranged South Korea’s gifts to Somali government officials. Counselor Kang has thrown together as gifts some random items in a suitcase, including some liquor and a VHS video of the 1988 Olympics ceremony in Seoul. Ambassador Han scolds Counselor Kang because the gifts are unwrapped, which Ambassador Han thinks makes the gifts look even tackier. Ambassador Han is also annoyed that liquor is one of the gifts, because he thinks it might be insensitive or offensive to Muslim culture that discourages drinking of alcohol.

The North Korean chief diplomat in this story is Ambassador Rim Yong-su (played by Huh Joon-ho), whose right-hand person is Counselor Tae Joon-ki (played by Koo Kyo-hwan). In stark contrast to nervous and emotional Ambassador Han, the demeanor of Ambassador Rim Yong-su can be described as cold, calculating and ruthless. Ambassador Han wants to make ethical deals, while Ambassador Rim Yong-su seems to have dubious ethics. The two men have inevitable arguments.

It doesn’t take long for a violent act to occur. Soon after Ambassador Han and Secretary Gong Soo-chul have met up with Counselor Kang, the three of them are riding in a rented car on the way to an important meeting with a Somali government official. They get stopped and robbed at gunpoint by four Somali rebel soldiers, who oddly don’t want the car or any money. Instead, the robbers steal the suitcase containing the diplomatic gifts.

This theft immediately makes Ambassador Han suspicious. He suspects that Counselor Kang leaked the information and set up this robbery. Counselor Kang denies it, but trust has been broken. Ambassador Han decides that Counselor Kang will not be part of the meeting and that only Ambassador Han and Secretary Gong Soo-chul will go to the meeting, for which they are already running late because of the robbery.

It’s a race against time for Ambassador Han and Secretary Gong Soo-chul to make it to the meeting, but they are 15 minutes late. To their crushing disappointment, they find out that because they were tardy, the Somali government official has already moved on to his next appointment. And the appointment is with North Korean rival Ambassador Rim Yong-su.

As a consolation, Ambassador Han is told he can meet with an aide/speechwriter of the Somali official. Ambassador Han has an uncomfortable meeting with the aide, who essentially tells Ambassador Han that he can influence his boss to vote for South Korea, if the aide is given a hefty bribe. He asks for $50,000, because he wants $25,000 for each of his two sons’ tuition because his sons will be studying industrial technology in the United States.

The aide says that the bribe can be laundered as a donation labeled as money for a “training fellowship.” Ambassador Han balks at this suggestion. But the ambassador begins to wonder if he will fail in his mission to secure Somalia’s United Nations vote for South Korea, when the aide tells him that North Korea will most likely agree to the bribe.

Ambassador Han will have bigger things to worry about than deciding if he should bribe a government aide. Mogadishu soon comes under attack from a massive rebel insurrection. There’s mad rush to get back to the South Korean diplomat building, which isn’t easy because chaos quickly descends throughout the city. And it soon becomes apparent that it’s too unsafe to stay in Mogadishu.

While trying to figure out how to get his small group of South Korean citizens out of Mogadishu, Ambassador Han comes across a major dilemma: Ambassador Rim Yong-su asks for Ambassador Han’s help in sheltering Ambassador Rim Yong-su and the approximately 15 or 16 North Koreans, including some underage children, who are with Ambassador Rim Yong-su. A decision will also have to be made about which group of Koreans will have to renounce their citizenship and pretend to be part of the other group, in order to be rescued.

“Escape From Mogadishu” (which was actually filmed in Morocco, not Somalia) has plenty of pulse-pounding and suspenseful moments that accelerate to a very dramatic conclusion. There’s realistic violence in the movie, but it’s not over-the-top gratutitous. The movie also depicts in some heartbreaking ways how child soldiers are trained to kill. But fortunately for very sensitive viewers, there are no scenes of children actually killing other people. But the potential is there, and there’s a moment where someone has a very close call with two child soldiers.

All of the principal cast members give solid performances, with Kim Yoon-seok doing an admirable job as the flawed but sincere ambassador who finds out that he’s braver than he thought he was. “Escape From Mogadishu” effectively shows how quickly life in a war-torn country can take a turn for so many innocent people caught in the middle of an insurrection. The movie is also a riveting look at North Korean and South Korean identities. And it’s a memorable depiction of what people will or will not do to hold on to patriotic allegiances when there are life-or-death decisions to be made.

Well Go USA released “Escape From Mogadishu” in select U.S. cinemas on August 6, 2021. The movie was released in Korea on July 28, 2021. “Escape From Mogadishu” will be released on digital on October 19, 2021. The movie’s release on Blu-Ray and DVD is on January 18, 2022.

Review: ‘A Girl From Mogadishu,’ starring Aja Naomi King

July 16, 2020

by Carla Hay

“A Girl From Mogadishu”

Directed by Mary McGuckian

English and Somalian with subtitles

Culture Representation: Taking place in Somalia and Ireland, the drama “A Girl From Mogadishu” (based on a true story) has a racially diverse cast (white and black) representing Somalian natives and refugees and Irish politicians and social workers.

Culture Clash: Ifrah Ahmed escapes war-torn Somalia for a life in Ireland, where she becomes a social activist campaigning to outlaw female genital mutilation.

Culture Audience: “A Girl From Mogadishu” will appeal primarily to people who like stories about social justice issues and immigrants who overcome difficult challenges.

Barkhad Abdi and Aja Naomi King in “A Girl From Mogadishu” (Photo by Seamus Murphy/Pembridge Pictures)

The dramatic film “A Girl From Mogadishu” (written and directed by Mary McGuckian) takes on two very difficult subjects—war-torn Somalia and the barbaric practice of female genital mutilation (FGM)—and tells the story from the perspective of someone who’s experienced both in real life. The movie is a biography of Ifrah Ahmed, who fled Somalia when she was 15. She ended up in Ireland, and became a leading activist in a campaign to outlaw FGM, which has been a forced ritual (mostly inflicted on underage girls) in African cultures for centuries.

Aja Naomi King (who is American) gives a compelling performance as Ifrah, from the ages of 15 to her 20s. The entire movie has her voiceover narration, which works well in some scenes, but doesn’t work in others. The movie begins on December 28, 2006, with Ifrah running for her life on the day that’s known as the Fall of Mogadishu, when the militaries of Somalia’s Transitional Federal Government and Ethiopian troops invaded the Somali capital.

Ifrah becomes separated from her family (her grandmother, her father and her brother) after the military raided the family home. She ends up in an empty house, where three military soldiers rape her. Ifrah has an aunt who lives in Minnesota, so Ifrah thinks her best chance for a life outside of Somalia is to go to the United States to live with her aunt.

Ifrah boards a bus to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. From there, she plans to go to the United States. But she has a close call in Addis Ababa when she finds out that she boarded the wrong bus, which is controlled by a sex trafficker.

She runs away from the wrong bus and boards another bus, which leads her to a family with a son named Hassan (played by Barkhad Abdi), who tells Ifrah that he can take her to the United States. The movie doesn’t make it clear how Ifrah was able to pay for this service, since it’s obvious that Hassan isn’t going to all this trouble out of the goodness of his own heart. This missing detail is an example of one of the flaws in this movie’s screenplay.

Hassan provides Ifrah with a passport and specific instructions to follow him and imitate what he does when they’re at the airport. It’s the first time that Ifrah ever gets on an escalator and goes on an airplane, so she’s understandably terrified. But when Ifrah and Hassan leave Ethiopia, they don’t arrive in the United States. They arrive in Ireland’s capital city of Dublin instead.

Ifrah is angry and confused over why Hassan lied to her, but he explains that Ifrah cannot stay with her aunt in Minnesota because her aunt is not a legal immigrant in the United States. Hassan tells Ifrah that she can seek asylum in Ireland. And then he drops her off in the cold winter night at a Dublin Asylum Seekers’ Center with nothing more than a note written in English with her name and why she needs asylum.

Because she is an unaccompanied minor seeking asylum, Ifrah is put into a group home called Ashton House and is placed under the care of social workers. She experiences major culture shock, not only because she can’t speak English but also because she has difficulty adjusting to the type of food that’s eaten in Ireland. In one scene, when a male social worker laughs at how Ifrah eats a bowl of cornflakes with her bare hands, she gets irritated and throws a shoe at him.

Ifrah is reprimanded, but she is able to communicate with the social worker that what she’s really frustrated about is not being able to speak English. With the help of a Somalian translator at Ashton House, Ifrah is able to better communicate with the staff. Ifrah has also become friends with another Somalian refugee at Ashton House. Her new friend is Amala (played by Martha Canga Antonio), and they both help each other learn English.

Ifrah’s life takes an unexpected and dramatic turn when she has her first medical exam in Ireland. The doctors are shocked to find out about her FGM. At first, Ifrah mistakenly thinks that their horrified reaction is because they think she’s HIV-positive. The doctors tell her she’s not HIV-positive and that they’re upset by the mutilation of her genital area. Ifrah replies, “This is my culture.”

However, when Ifrah figures out that FGM is not normal and is a major stigma in cultures outside of Africa, she’s overwhelmed by shame and starts sobbing uncontrollably. The next thing you know, there’s a flash forward to Ifrah as an anti-FGM activist giving a speech to a group of politicians. This sudden flash-forward scene is a little jarring and an example of better editing choices that director McGuckian could have made, since the movie keeps jumping back and forth in time in a way that doesn’t always transition smoothly.

The rest of the movie shows Ifrah’s anti-FGM activism and the increased progress and media attention that she and her allies received for this issue. With the help of Ireland’s Labour Party politicians Emer Costello (played by Orla Brady) and her husband Joe Costello (played by Stanley Townsend), Ifrah was able to get FGM outlawed in Ireland. And, accompanied by a NGO (non-governmental organization) rep (played by Luke Spencer Roberts), Ifrah travels to Africa to further her cause to get FGM banned.

The movie also depicts how Ifrah eventually opened up and went public with all the harrowing details of what happened to her during her FGM torture. She was mutilated at 8 years old with several other girls, and they were tied up for 40 days with a very limited ability to urinate. One of the girls got a urinary tract infection and died.

There’s a scene where Ifrah goes back to Somalia to confront her grandmother for allowing the FGM to happen to Ifrah. Hassan pops up out of nowhere and tells Ifrah, “Good girls keep things private and don’t talk.” Ifrah replies defiantly, “I will not be silenced! Not now, not ever, not even for my family!”

“A Girl From Mogadishu” has an important story to tell, but there are some flaws in how it’s told. The dialogue and narration are often simplistic and predictable. And the movie needed better editing, so that the story didn’t seem so choppy and jumbled during the flashback and flash-forward scenes. However, the acting, especially from King in the lead role, elevates the often-trite screenplay. Her performance is worth watching, even if she has to say a lot of lines that could have been written better.

The production design (by Emma Pucci) and costume design (by Nathalie Leborgne) complement the movie very well. For example, the film does a convincing recreation of Barack Obama’s 2011 visit to Ireland, with Ifrah among the thousands of people who went to see him give an outdoor speech in Dublin. Ifrah is also involved in doing fashion shows to raise money for her cause. Those fashion shows are depicted quite nicely in the film.

There are many scenes in “A Girl From Mogadishu” that look like a made-for-TV movie instead of a truly cinematic experience. Despite its flaws, “A Girl From Mogadishu” has emotional authenticity and respect for the traumatic subject matter (the real Ifrah Ahmed was a consultant for the movie), considering that FGM is rarely acknowledged in narrative feature films. This movie will help make people more aware that trying to stop FGM is not just a “women’s issue.” It’s also about human rights.

Showtime Women premiered “A Girl From Mogadishu” on July 15, 2020, and the movie is available on Showtime’s on-demand platforms. Pembridge Pictures will release the film internationally from November 25, 2020 to December 10, 2020.