I was expecting a fun music story and another great performance by Shin Min-a. Go Go 70's is much more than a music film. It hides a warning which applies to every society which tips the governmental scales towards a dictatorship or a rule of law based on religious morality. It is the story of a generation of young people who have just found their freedom from childhood and need to express themselves. And a country ready to suppress that freedom for control of the public.
Korea was going into a full on dictatorship with Park Chung-hee going from president to dictator by announcing martial law to avoid being outvoted as president. He also felt it important to keep the U. S. military in Korea to help protect against North Korea (so he joined the U. S. in the Vietnam War, sending 350,000 Korean troops to war). Our hero is up for conscription into the Korean army but decided to dodge the draft.
Those U. S. troops brought American music and ideas with them which gave a generation of Korean youth an idea of freedom. The film captures a group of young people, just entering adulthood, the first chance to be free of school and parents. Rock and Roll? Not yet. Since most of the U. S. soldiers stationed in Korea were Afro-American (a commentary on American social bias), our young Korean musicians grab onto Soul Music and are successful but underpaid in the tiny clubs. While bandleader/singer Sang-kyu and guitarist Man-sik are satisfied their groupie, Mimi (played by standout actress Shin Min-a), can see a bigger and better future by entering a Seoul rock and roll contest run by a rock journalist, Lee Byeong-wook, who wants to emulate U. S. entrepreneur Bill Graham.
Entrepreneur Lee Byeong-wook opens a post-curfew nightclub called Nirvana. It is only when Mini adds her fashion sense and go go dance moves to stir up the audience that the group, the Devils, take off. And Go-Go becomes the word, causing hundreds of all-late night rock clubs. The Devils and Mimi are flying high. But this means young people across Korea are out partying all night and not being controlled by Park Chung-hee's martial law and his highly authoritarian Yushin Constitution.
In order to control youth, Park Chung-hee outlaws the Go-Go clubs, effectively breaking up the Devils. The law forces all young men to cut their long hair or have them arrested and forceably clipped. Beaten and shorn, the Devils decide to have one last blow-out, illegal big concert. While the concert rocks the house, a huge troop in SWAT armor arrives to break up the concert...
Fortunately America dodged a wanna-be dictator and rock 'n roll and youth rebellion remain legal. Sadly Russia and China are not so lucky as Tsar Putin and Emperor Xi Jinping have the iron hand. Great film! Worth the viewing.
