12.12: The Day

12.12: The Day (Korean: 서울의 봄; RR: Seour-ui Bom; lit. Seoul's Spring) is a 2023 South Korean period drama film directed by Kim Sung-su, starring Hwang Jung-min, Jung Woo-sung, Lee Sung-min, Park Hae-joon and Kim Sung-kyun. The film is set against the backdrop of the December 12, 1979, military coup from the late 1970s to early 1980s. It was released theatrically on November 22, 2023.
The film grossed $97 million worldwide against a $17 million budget, becoming the highest-grossing South Korean film of 2023 and the fourth-highest-grossing South Korean film of all time. It was also selected as the South Korean entry for the Best International Feature Film category for the 97th Academy Awards.
After President Park's assassination, martial law is declared. Security commander Chun Doo-gwang and the officers who follow him stage a coup. Lee Tae-shin, a stubborn commander of the Capital Garrison Command who believes that soldiers should not take political action, fights against Chun Doo-gwang. As the conflict between the two men grows, the military leaders postpone their decisions, and the Minister of Defense disappears. In this chaos, spring in Seoul, which everyone longs for, heads in an unexpected direction.
Director Kim Sung-su revealed at the press conference that he was a senior in high school at the time of the Coup d'état of December Twelfth and was living in Hannam-dong, Seoul, where the incident occurred. He left his house and was walking around the neighborhood, and when he heard a gunshot from the Army Chief of Staff's official residence, he went there, but the soldiers controlled it. He was scared because he heard gunshots all night and he couldn't get close, but he was full of curiosity and questions at the time because he couldn't figure out what was going on, which led him to make this film.
The scenes set at the headquarters of the Korean Army were shot at the headquarters of Kyungpook National University in Daegu, North Gyeongsang.
In the film, similar pseudonyms are used instead of the real persons' names and, although it is based on real events, there are also fictional elements.
Principal photography began in February 2022 and ended in July 2022.
As of December 3, 2023, 12.12: The Day has grossed $34.2 million with a running total of 4.66 million tickets sold. It became the biggest film of 2023 in Korea, when it grossed $90.5 million by end of December 2023. By the end of February 2024, it has grossed over $97 million.
The film is in the 1980s, but Korean spectators consisted mostly of younger people (in their 20s and 30s) rather than middle-aged people (e.g. in their 40s and 50s). There was even a heart rate challenge among them, where people would check their heart rate using their smartwatches while watching the movie, then take a picture of it and upload it on social media to express heightened stress or righteous anger while watching the film.
As a consequence of the growing popularity of the film, Korean audiences showed an increasing interest in other film works with historical dimension, such as 5th Republic, which focuses on the Korean Coup d'état of December Twelfth.
A review for Screen Daily indicated that the film was "also entirely accessible to viewers with little knowledge of South Korean politics." "It's not often that a movie that's both so historically accurate and entertaining comes around, which makes 12.12 especially laudable," wrote The Escapist. Other reviews praised the production.