's Korean movie "The Defender" was very popular. In South Korea, it was released for 70 days, and the cumulative number of viewers reached 11,367,698, ranking eighth in the history of Korean films. Introduced into China, it stirred up tears and completely annihilated the barriers between languages, ethnic groups and national borders. I watched this film and cried a few times. At midnight, the sky and the earth are silent, and the distance and hope are hidden in a huge and silent darkness. Touching the scene, he wrote casually:
"If you are a legal person, you must watch "The Defender", whether you are a lawyer, a judge, a prosecutor, a police officer, or the most common legal officer, you will find yourself in the movie. , and find a direction in reality. If you are not a lawyer, I hope you will watch "The Defender", whether you are a father, a mother, a husband, a wife, or a child, when a Song Youshuo-style lawyer appears by your side, Please understand him, support him, and treat him well."
The protagonist of the film, lawyer Song Youshuo, is based on Roh Moo-hyun, the 16th president of South Korea who later committed suicide by jumping off a cliff. Therefore, every scene in the film condenses the blood and tears history of South Korea's democratic transition. Koreans were in tears because the movie touched their historical wounds. What are the Chinese crying for?
The transformation of the country and the transformation of the citizens, the two achieve each other, should preferably happen simultaneously. At the very least, the transformation of citizens cannot be later than the transformation of the country. If citizens cannot rise up, the country cannot turn over completely. Song Wooseok's transformation from a business lawyer to a political leader corresponds to South Korea's upheaval in the 1980s. The theme of "The Defender" is to present the transformation of South Korea with the transformation of Song Youshuo, and to present the rough and bloody road of South Korea's democratization with the spiritual journey of Song Youshuo.
Song Youshuo went from escaping politics and turning a deaf ear to the cry of democracy, to jumping into the political river and hitting the water in the middle. The historical background is the "Burim Incident" in 1981. As the movie shows, this is an unjust case, fabricated by Chun Doo Hwan's military dictatorship. A total of 22 young people, university students and university-trained activists in the Busan area, were accused of circulating dangerous books and having illegal gatherings under martial law. They were suspected of violating the National Security Law, the Anti-Communist Law, and the Assembly and Demonstration Law. and so on, was detained. Park Zhenyu in the film is one of the 22 young people.
This is probably what we call a "sensitive case", and lawyers are generally reluctant to take over, lest they get burned. Song Youshuo represented the case and acted as Park Zhenyu's lawyer. The first reason was to repay Park Zhenyu's mother's kindness to him. Although he was cynic, he was not ruthless. After Park Zhenyu was arrested, Park's mother's desperate pleading broke his heart. The second reason is that the deeper he gets involved in the case, the more he realizes how tyrannical the politics of this country are and how sinking the law is. Before that, he didn’t seem to know (whether he didn’t know it or didn’t want to know it) Political prisoners don’t know about illegal detention, extortion of confessions by torture, or the fact that the trial of this case is just like going through the motions...
If the first reason can be attributed to repayment of gratitude, the second reason can be attributed to righteous indignation, then the third reason can be attributed to for responsibilities and obligations. Song Youshuo took over the case, and his assistant strongly opposed it. The reason was very vivid: the eight characters in front of lawyer Song suddenly became clear, and it was not enough to step on the accelerator, how could he step on the brakes? Song Youshuo replied: "I want my children not to live in the This kind of absurd thing hits the brakes." This is a father's responsibility and obligation. As a lawyer, he firmly believes that Park Zhenyu is innocent, and that he will receive a verdict of innocence. For this result, he did not hesitate to "kick his stable life", which is the responsibility and obligation of a lawyer.
The struggle based on righteous indignation may be impassioned; the struggle based on duty can be persevering.
I remember a wise man said: The most evil part of autocracy is not to deprive you of your freedom, but to exempt you from your responsibilities and duties. What is responsibility and what is duty? For example: when injustice is written into the law, resistance is duty; when dictatorship becomes a reality, revolution is duty. If you lose your freedom, you can only become a slave. If you forget your responsibilities and obligations, you will become a slave forever. The deprivation of liberty is already very terrifying, and what is even more terrifying is that we have forgotten what freedom is, and forget that it is everyone's responsibility to defend liberty and resist tyranny.
The duty of a lawyer is to protect the law. In this sense, Song Youshuo, as a business lawyer, should not be severely criticized. Although he takes making money as his responsibility, he has never violated the law, never blended with judges, and never defrauded clients. It cannot even be said that the lawyer Song who represented the "Burim Incident" must be more noble than the lawyer Song who represented the tax case. In terms of lawyers' professional ethics, there is no difference between the two. At least we cannot use the latter to criticize the former.
It can only be said that, compared to business lawyer Song Youshuo, human rights lawyer Song Youshuo is more qualified to answer these questions: what is a lawyer, what is a lawyer's duty, and what is a lawyer's dignity. After becoming Park Jinyu's defense lawyer, he discovered the darkness of the judicial environment he was in. In the courtroom, he was like an angry lion, alone and fighting alone. Judges, prosecutors, and the lawyers who were sitting beside him, were all alone. Not his comrade. The question emerges from this: in a country full of evil laws and even impossible, what is a lawyer and what is a lawyer?
Fighting against evil laws can best test a lawyer's wisdom and courage. You can admit that "evil law is also law", but you must point out that "evil law is also evil", pointing directly at its evil, this is courage; fighting according to the law, this is wisdom. For example, if you use the "National Security Law" to prevaricate, I will use the "Constitution" and "Criminal Procedure Law" to counterattack. If the other party rips the fig leaf of the evil law in one fell swoop and cuts the political system into a state of incapacity, Song Youshuo can only take to the streets: "When the citizens cannot exercise their legal rights, as a lawyer, I should be at the forefront. The duty of a real lawyer."
One Song Youshuo can only be a lone hero and cannot rewrite the tragedy of the rule of law; ten thousand Song Youshuo, working together, can achieve the great cause of the rule of law. Song Youshuo represented the "Burim Incident", with the guidance of senior lawyers, the help of journalists and classmates, the military doctor lieutenant who watched the atrocities and stood up to testify, and his partner, the clown-like purser, I thought , When Song Youshuo's law firm suffers, he will choose to betray, which is more in line with the cruel reality we have seen; I don't want him to stick to the end and help Lawyer Song clean up a messy mess. Even the judge Li, who was accustomed to perverting the law, did not lose his conscience. After being forced to make a wrongful judgment, he promised to release all young people including Park Zhenyu on parole within two years.
In the last scene of the movie, when Song Youshuo stood in the dock, a total of 99 of the 142 lawyers in Busan appeared in court to defend him. This constitutes the climax of The Defender. Also a lawyer, Song Youshuo is supporting the upper limit of the rule of law, while the 99 people are raising the lower limit of the rule of law. Both are indispensable.
"The Defender" ends with Song Woo Suk's tearful smile. Wearing a white prison uniform, he lost freedom, but won justice, lost the present, but won the future. Just in my opinion, this tragic scene means more than that. Song Youshuo's prototype, Roh Moo-hyun, went from lawyer to president, and finally fell into the door of bribery and committed suicide by jumping off a cliff. Chen Shui-bian, who is comparable to Roh Moo-hyun, was also accused of corruption and has been imprisoned to this day. How do you comment on such a bleak ending, as well as the merits and crimes of Lu and Chen Zhiliu, laughter and tears?
We were outsiders in the history of Korean democracy, but "The Defender" transcends the clear national border, making us breathe the same breath as Song Youshuo The players who share the same fate, we rejoice in Song Youshuo's joy, we are entangled in Song Youshuo's entanglement, we are excited by Song Youshuo's excitement, and we are powerless in Song Youshuo's powerlessness. In fact, whether Song Youshuo is a judge who bends the law, a prosecutor who is stern, a reporter who mocks himself as a "scarecrow", whether it is the "Bulin Incident", or the black jail, torture and political persecution, in today's China, there is no shortage of counterparts. The suffering we endure is rather more severe and tragic. Based on this, our tears are not only for the movie, but also for the similar history and reality behind the movie - we still can't make history and reality into a movie. "They have movies that change countries, we have countries that change movies."
March 29, 2014
Yugo: Unfreelance writer, backward youth. Avoiding the banquet for fear of hearing the false air, and writing books only for free talk. No way, everyone should do their part. He has written "Flying From Dusk", "Crossing the Gate of Midnight - Eros and Justice in Images", "A Hundred Years of Lonely Shadow", "Three Words to Ask You After Drinking", etc.
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