User reviews

As far as South Korean director Park Kwang Su is concerned, it has been noted that the resounding success of "The Black Republic" has proved that the favorable critical as well as commercial response accorded to his first film "Chilsu and Mansu" was not any fluke. As a director who studied cinema at the prestigious ESEC Paris,Park Kwang Su has emerged as a genuine director whose sympathies have always remained with those ordinary,voiceless underdogs whose muffled voices need to be heard at all costs. Those critics and admirers of South Korean cinema who have seen Chilsu and Mansu would not delay in stating that in many ways this film is an extension of issues which have preoccupied Park Kwang Su namely the plight of ordinary people against the organized establishment and powerful political forces. As there are hints of melodrama through this film one would be easily tempted to refuse a political film label to this film. Much of the film's authenticity is revealed through the real setting of a dying coal mine which is responsible for creating some hard to heal wounds for a group of ordinary citizens. The Black Republic also questions the status of women within South Korean society during the late eighties, a tough time for everybody as people were aware of the presence of the long hands of law which did not spare anybody.