“Default” Pays Off

Release Date：Nov/30/2018
Genre：Drama
Director：Kook-Hee Choi
Cast：Hye-su Kim、Ah-In Yoo、Woo-jin Jo、Jun-ho Heo、Vincent Cassel

Viola's Rating：6.8







In 2015, “The Big Short” depicted the Financial Crisis of 2007~2008, and is very informative by demonstrating economic phenomena or terminologies with comical dialogues, main characters’ narration or subtitles. This year, Korean released a feature film describing the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis, revealing how Korea dealt with it and received help from IMF and the reason why that week is called National Humiliation in Korea.

As a drama based on real event focusing on financial issue, “Default” features the main character, Si-hyun (Hye-su Kim), the monetary policy manager at the Bank of Korea, who predicts a massive national financial crisis and reports it to the Director. The Director not only doesn't schedule an emergency summit until 10 days later but also does it without notifying the public of the situation. The Managing Director of IMF (Vincent Cassel) comes to Korea only one week before the country goes bust, and that is when those who try to prevent the crisis, those who seek to take advantage of it, and those who are only trying to protect their livelihood all caught in the wake of a national bankruptcy.

While talking about the Financial Crisis, “Default” also points out Korea’s problem of emphasizing age and sexism within work space. Although it reflects the fact, it somehow distracts moviegoers’ attention to focus on how Si-hyun receives unfair treatment, and it can lead to an assumption that would the decision be different at the time if this character is male.

Because IMF has received a bunch of criticism from different countries around the world, “Default” also explains the pros and cons if Korea received help from IMF back then or not. By accusing the government’s decision, the film lets the audience see how some decision makers make judgment based on their own benefits.

Different from “The Big Short” which follows several main characters on how they earn money through the crisis, “Default” focuses on three storylines: Average Joe, the government and opportunists. Due to the reason that the government doesn’t tell the public about their current condition on financial, owners of small companies are still doing business with downstream and upstream manufacturers while they don’t know that all these checks aren’t going to pay off. The opportunists in the flick are like Christian Bale’s character in “The Big Short”, who notice that Korean is suddenly losing foreign funds, and play odds with totally legal methods.

Maybe “Default” isn’t a comedy like “The Big Short”, but it aptly portrays the real situation in 1997, and even though Korea is still suffering from the decision, they truly keep the lesson in mind, and merely by watching the motion picture, not only the history will be learnt, but also the enjoyment will pay off.

Picture Credit: IMDb