"Mission School"

In 2004 directorKang We-suckwas a student at Dae Myung High School, a private Christian school in Seoul. Not a Christian himself,Kang We-suckbecame fed up with the religious element of his education and started staging protests demanding that Dae Myung High School respect his freedom to religious expression. Ten years laterKang We-suckdramatized this event in"Mission School", I presume in an attempt to explain what exactly his motivation was. Having seen the film, I'm not sureKang We-suckhimself knows the answer to that question.

To start out with, the premise ofKang We-suck's protest is a fairly shaky one. While freedom of religious expression is obviously important, at the same time, Dae Myung High School is a private high school that is allowed to set its own rules.Kang We-suckcould have just transferred to another school if the devotionals were too much. He stuck around in part because for all its flaws Dae Myung High School offered a quality education.

Another issue is that having to endure daily preachings doesn't really seem like that big a deal. Now, part of my perspective might be distorted. The day before watching"Mission School"I watched"Speed", a movie about a high school with much, much worse problems than anythingKang We-suckhad to endure at Dae Myung High School. This is not to state thatKang We-suckis wrong- more that it's difficult to get all that worked up about comparatively minor problems.

For all these issues, though, by the end my opinion of"Mission School"had trended toward the mostly positive, because I thinkKang We-suckthe director appreciates the fact thatKang We-suckthe student was in many ways a rebellious teenager who was just looking for something to rebel against. On filmKang We-suckdoesn't have very many problems. He has a passable social life and a loving mother. It's just the whole religious element that was driving him nuts enough to finally force him to take extreme measures, because what's youth for if not extremities?

It's weird watching the story unfold from Kang We-suk's limited perspective because it becomes increasingly clear the longer"Mission School"goes on that Kang We-suk's efforts have attracted serious attention, and yetKang We-suckthe student is neither happy nor upset about the prospect of wider press coverage. He cooperates with a reporter, yet rather than being a central character, the reporter is just this guyKang We-suckmeets one time.

"Mission School"is realistic in a way that makes it feel unrealistic. When I see a film that purports to be based on a real-life event about religious freedom, I expect a level of soapboxing and dramatic license designed to create a story of heroes villains. Instead what we have is a troubled teenage boy, some worried adults, and some people who just come off like self-interested jerks.

And in the end that's probably exactly what actually happenedKang We-suck's film doesn't have that much polish but that's a big part of the point."Mission School"is a reminder about the reality of people who grab headlines like this, while at the same time not being all that satisfying as a film. Because (mild spoilers) the movie just ends withKang We-suckgoing home. Like we all have to, sooner or later.

Review by William Schwartz

"Mission School"is directed byKang We-suckand featuresLee Paul,Lim Jeong-eun-I,Kwon Woo-kyeongandYoon-geum Seon-ah.