| Cast overview, first billed only: | |||
| Kang-ho Song | ... | Kim Man-seob | |
| Thomas Kretschmann | ... | Jürgen Hinzpeter | |
| Hae-Jin Yoo | ... | Hwang Tae-sul | |
| Jun-Yeol Ryu | ... | Gu Jae-sik | |
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Hyuk-kwon Park | ... | Reporter Choi |
| Gwi-hwa Choi | ... | Civvies leader | |
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Soon-bae Cha | ... | Driver Cha |
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Sin Dam-soo | ... | Driver Sin |
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Seong-hyeon Ryoo | ... | Driver Ryoo |
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Tae-goo Eom | ... | Illegal checkpoint Sergeant First Class Park |
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Min-hee Park | ... | Kwon Joong-ryeong |
| Lee Jeong-eun | ... | Hwang Tae-sool's wife | |
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Eun-mi Yoo | ... | Kim Eun-jeong |
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Kwon Soon-Joon | ... | Kang Sang-goo |
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Yoon Seok-ho | ... | Hwang Tae-sool's son |
May 1980. A Seoul taxi driver named Man-seob (SONG Kang-ho) comes across an offer too good to be true. If he drives a foreign passenger from Seoul down to Gwangju and back again before the curfew, he'll be paid the unthinkable sum of 100,000 won - enough to cover several months of unpaid rent. Without stopping to ask the details, he picks up the German reporter Peter (Thomas Kretschmann) and sets off along the highway. Although stopped by police roadblocks at the edge of Gwangju, Man-seob is desperate to earn his taxi fare, and eventually manages to find a way into the city. There they encounter students and ordinary citizens taking part in large-scale demonstrations against the government. Man-seob, alarmed by the danger in the air, pleads with Peter to go quickly back to Seoul. But Peter ignores him, and with the help of a university student Jae-sik (RYU Jun-yeol) and a Gwangju taxi driver named HWANG (YOO Hai-jin), begins shooting with his news camera. As time passes the situation ... Written by Showbox
I've been watching Korean movies for a long time now, and this is just another amazing work of art from Korea. Great acting, Song is one of my favorite actors, he is amazing in this movie, but all the cast is to be praised. The story is very well told, it grips you to the screen from start to finish and it is not a small movie. I knew part of the troubled history of Korea by i had no idea this massacred ever existed. The way the director gets us there is no short of an amazing accomplishment, you never feel the movie is too long or just going trough the motions, it involves you in the story, you really feel like you are there.