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Historical Background
The film centers around the Gwangju Uprising that occurred from May 18, 1980 to May 27, 1980 and it is estimated to have led to 2,000 people being killed. The plot in the film mirrors the historical background of the Gwangju Uprisings.

The Gwangju Uprising was a result of a continuous power tug-of-war between the government and the citizens of South Korea – mainly college students – that were advocating for democracy.

For many years, Gwangju’s Uprising was a forbidden term in South Korea – those who were on the side of the government during that time held the reigns of nation. According to scholar Se Young Jang from the Wilson Center, "books related to Gwangju were strictly censored or prohibited from even being published. Although a number of political dissidents and activists sought to inherit and develop the spirit of Gwangju, they were persecuted." Scholar Kim Yong Cheol stated that, "the political legacies the Gwangju Uprising produced played a pivotal role in checking military intervention in politics during the democratic transition as well as in establishing the principle of civilian supremacy during the democratic transition period." Despite being banned, hundreds and thousands of news articles on what was happening in Gwangju were trying to be released by some of the journalists inside the city.

Efforts were made by some American journalists in order to inform the world about what was happening in Gwangju. Tim Shorrock published numerous US government documents related to the uprisings that were happening in Gwangju, and Terry Anderson, who was a former AP correspondent, covered the uprisings himself and provided an eyewitness account of the situation in 1980. People in Seoul were not aware of what was happening in Gwangju, until international media took hold of the story. Andrew David Jackson of Cambridge University argued that Jürgen Hinzpeter's relationship with South Korea's democratization movement "have become important weapons for the activist generation in an ongoing struggle over the memorialization of the Kwangju Uprising."

Candlelight Protests
The year marked the thirtieth year of significant democratic advancement in South Korean history, compared to the setting in which A Taxi Driver took place. Paul Y. Chang of KOAJ argued that the contemporary candlelight protest industry draws on organizational and cultural resources first established in past democracy movements." During the filming of the movie, the director Jang Hoon was stopped multiple times, and the main actor of this film, Song Kang Ho, was blacklisted by the government from appearing on major motion picture films. Similar to the past, where newspaper articles and mass media coverage in South Korea was heavily monitored and censored, this movie faced obstacles as it reached its release date due to the former government’s implications.