Night Flight - teenage complications in high school Korea's pressure cooker

Night Flight is the always involving story of Yong-Ju, a lovelorn Korean teenager with a hopeless crush on classmate Gi-Woong, a taciturn school gang leader who is bullying Yong-Ju’s best friend and is probably completely wrong for him in every way.  Both Yong-Ju and Gi-Woong are struggling with secrets: Yong-Ju worried that his classmates will find out that he is gay, Gi-Woong searching the streets for a relative recently released from prison.

South Korean education is sometimes held up as something the British education system should aspire to given the former’s success in international tests.  If this film, along with last year’s Pluto and this year’s Han Gong-Ju bear any resemblance at all to reality, then I’m not sure any increased educational attainment is worth the downsides.  All give a sense of a system with incredible pressure and an utter disregard for student welfare.  Anything that does not fit within the strictures must be pushed under a rug or swept out of the door. No failure or distraction will be allowed.  When Yong-Ju mentions to a teacher that his friend is being bullied, he is told that the only things that matter are exam results and university entrance.

All this creates a setting for the film of a pressure cooker or perhaps an over-inflated balloon, about to burst.  A law of the jungle society is allowed under the surface as long as outwardly it is a picture of academic success. This allows the vicious to get away with most things and no-one daring to rock the boat.  Gi-Woong and his gang earn extra cash as bulliers of bullies- hired by parents to beat up and threaten the kids picking on their own kids. In such a setting, how can a student dare be different, let alone openly gay?

In these circumstances, any relationship between the more genial Yong-Ju and the coiled ball of anger that is Gi-Woong is surely doomed.  It is also hard to root for, given Gi-Woong’s initial violent homophobia.  But the film just about overcomes this because of Yong-Ju’s devotion to the romantic idea of it - nothing can dampen his longstanding feelings.  It is credit to the character created by the film that this is the case, and the continually changing, somewhat ambiguous relationship between the two is brilliantly acted and unpredictable.  The film brings the viewer into Yong-Ju’s way of seeing the world, particularly through smart use of flashback to their previous friendship in junior high.

The film is visually striking, turning Seoul and its surrounds into a beautiful landscape through some beautiful cinematography and filling many scenes with a real vitality, whilst creating a stifling, almost prison-like feel for the school scenes.  The film also makes an interesting use of panning away from the characters during scenes whilst their voices continue off-screen; in doing so it reinforces the sense of restlessness within both the main characters.

This is an intensely dramatic film, but one which knows when to turn up and down the volume on the drama, to let the characters evolve and come through and to keep the viewer engaged.   The final outburst is gut-wrenching and horrific but also feels consistent with what has gone before despite being so much more extreme.  It is a confidently directed, well-acted and consistently interesting film which focuses in detail on some complex relationships to illuminate wider society.