I Can Speak: The Comedy Drama That Paved the Way for Historical Facts to Be Revealed

"I Can Speak" (2017) is a film directed by a famous Korean director, Kim Hyun-seok who has received great attention with the drama "Cyrano Agency" (2010). This film brings the dark history of "Comfort Women" or in Japanese called "Jugun ianfu", a term used to refer to women who were forced to become sexual slaves of the Japanese Army during World War II.

The film that brought the name of the veteran Korean actress, Na Moon-Hee, won many awards as Best Actress at four Asian cinema awards, including the 2017 Blue Dragon Film Awards and 2018 BaekSang Arts Awards , which premiered on September 21, 2017, and managed to top the Box Office. in its first week of broadcast.

The film begins with the meeting of an ambitious Civil Servant named Park Min-Jae (Lee Je-Hoon), and Na Ok-Bun's grandmother (Na Moon-Hee) who always reports the slightest violation around their place of residence. He has filed complaints for at least 8,000 civil complaints, ranging from reports of suspicious foreigners to violations of billboard lines blocking pedestrian paths.

As time goes by, the friendship between Park Min-Jae and Na Ok-Bun develops, Ok-Bun's grandmother's ambition to be able to speak English and Min-Jae's younger brother, Park Young-Jae (Sung Yoo-Bin)'s love for Ok-Bun's grandmother's cooking. make the two of them get to know each other.

The story of "I Can Speak" which initially turns sweet and warm in the early half of the film, turns into more emotional when Ok-Bun's grandmother's original goal of learning English turns out to be deeper than a personal problem just wanting to be able to talk to her sister who is far apart in Los Angeles. , but leads to a bigger goal, which involves a dark story in the past that ultimately wins the sympathy of the entire Korean population.

When talking about issue-based or historical commercial cinema, there is a fine line between story exploration and historical data examination. Korean cinema uses this format a lot to present historical facts that were previously silent on the surface and then re-presented by all means in order to build opinions that have been silenced.

The cinema industry of this type is moving slowly but always appears in the past few years, for example “1987: When The Day Comes” (2017) or “A Taxi Driver” (2017) which brings Korean history in a magnificent film vehicle, with details of resistance. All components of society in both films can voice the injustices that have occurred in the past.

Although this method is quite bold, no one can touch and challenge historical facts that are obscured in the art media. Only a country that has made peace with its dark history can allow films like this to be shown.

"I Can Speak" stands on a slightly different side from the two films but is still on the same path, the narrative that is built is against the atrocities of the Japanese army which incidentally is an expression of the mistakes of the governments of other countries, it's no wonder that in the end this film received rave reviews from the entire Korean population.

In terms of plot, “I Can Speak” is a type of film that does not explore the presentation of its main conflict. In its first half, the film is quite enjoyable with a comedy drama centered on the unusual friendship between an old grandmother and a young man in his early 30s.

There are no puzzles that lead to the issue of "Comfort Women" except for a few shallow scenes when Ok-Bun meets his old friend (a fellow Japanese Army atrocity survivor) who is sickly. Only after the film advances to the final chapter, the main conflict is installed and hastily seemed to want to be resolved immediately.

However, even though it is designed in this way, this film can still be enjoyed and is one of the recommendations for films with endings that can be accepted by everyone. It's no wonder that in the end, "I Can Speak" was chosen for support for family film production from the Korean Film Council.