Default (2018 film)


Default is a 2018 South Korean drama film directed by Choi Kook-hee. The film was released on November 28, 2018. Starring Kim Hye-soo, Yoo Ah-in, Jo Woo-jin and Heo Joon-ho, it is the first Korean film to feature a financial crisis theme based on real-life events.

Plot

Default dramatizes the behind-the-scenes story of the IMF negotiations that took place during the financial crisis in 1997 through three parallel stories.
Factory owner Gap-su wins a contract to supply metal bowls to a big department store, but the store pays him with a promissory note — and so by accepting it, Gap-su unknowingly exposes himself to the risk that his customer won’t be able to pay him. This backfires when the department store goes bankrupt, leaving Gap-su without the funds to pay his suppliers.
Meanwhile, a young financial analyst named Jung-hak hears stories on the radio about families in distress — particularly those selling their homes below market price to pay bills resulting from small business bankruptcies. Seeking to profit from this situation, Jung-hak sets up his own investment fund to bet against the Korean economy.
Finally, the governor of Korea’s central bank reads a report from his head of monetary policy, a woman named Si-hyun. Si-hyun’s report concludes that Korea will run out of foreign reserves to defend the Korean won’s artificially fixed exchange rate against the US dollar within a week. This triggers an emergency meeting of top government officials, who must defend the Korean economy from collapse.
These three stories show the 1997 financial crisis from different perspectives. Si-hyun’s story shows how the government acted during the crisis, Jung-hak’s narrative frames the downturn in economic terms, and Gap-su represents millions of real Korean small business owners who suffered in 1997. At each of these levels, Default embodies the trauma resulting from the crisis: we see characters desperate to sell their homes, drowning their sorrows in soju, and even committing suicide.

Cast

Main

The read-through of the script occurred on December 7, 2017. Principal photography began on December 12, 2017.

Release

The film was released in local cinemas on November 28, 2018.
The film was previously screened at the 71st Cannes International Film Festival's Marché du Film in May 2018. The film was also screened at the 3rd International Film Festival & Awards Macau at the Special Presentations on December 9, 2018.
Ahead of its local release, the film was sold to 17 territories including USA, Japan, Singapore, Taiwan, Indonesia, Hong Kong and Macao.

Reception

Box office

On its opening day in South Korea, Default accumulated 301,324 viewers, taking nearly 40% of the box office and also taking the first place from Bohemian Rhapsody at the box office.
On the fifth day of its release, Default surpassed 1 million admissions, and during the first weekend of its release, Default garnered 1,573,441 viewers, securing the first place at the box office for its first weekend. Default became the highest November opening in the history of the Korean box office.
After topping the charts its first two weekends, it has since clocked up 3,752,327 million admissions in its home country.

Critical Response

On Korean review aggregator Naver Movie Database, the film holds an approval rating of 6.50 from critic reviews and 8.74 from the audience. The Hollywood Reporter's Clarence Tsui called it "An engaging multi-strand story about a nation in turmoil", and wrote, " director Choi Kook-hee has sought to fill that void in a dramatic and furious exposition of causes and effects as seen through the eyes of his three protagonists, who experience the crisis up close in different ways. Choi and his screenwriter Eom Seong-min turn mind-boggling macroeconomic concepts into emotions aimed at the viewers' heart. On the downside, this tends to lead to the film defaulting toward the simplistic and melodramatic." Pierce Conran from Screen Anarchy suggested that, "The film borrows heavily from recent global financial thrillers, stirs in a predictable dose of melodrama and attempts to tackle women's equality", but concluded, "Technically the film is polished, but as it deliberately seeks to evoke a glum atmosphere it comes off as a little drab."

Awards and nominations

AwardsCategoryRecipientResultRef.
Faroe Islands Film FestivalBest ActressKim Hye-soo
19th Director's Cut AwardsBest ActressKim Hye-soo
55th Baeksang Arts AwardsBest ActressKim Hye-soo
40th Blue Dragon Film AwardsBest ActressKim Hye-soo
40th Blue Dragon Film AwardsBest Supporting ActorJo Woo-jin
40th Blue Dragon Film AwardsBest ScreenplayEom Seong-min
6th Korean Film Producers Association AwardsBest ScreenplayEom Seong-min