For many South Koreans, this week’s dramatic events were their first real-life brush with the nation’s history of military dictatorship. That’s why millions turned to a year-old movie on Netflix and a literary classic to try and make sense of the turmoil.
The film 12.12: The Day, which debuted in 2023 to 13 million moviegoers, has been the No. 1 Korean film on the streaming platform since Dec. 3, when President Yoon Suk Yeol stunned the nation by imposing martial law. The 141-minute blockbuster, which has been on Netflix since May, depicts the events surrounding a Dec. 12 coup in 1979.
The Asian country is still dealing with the aftermath of Yoon’s Tuesday evening decision, which reignited memories of the movement led by General Chun Doo-hwan that created a dictatorship and culminated in the bloody Gwangju Uprising of 1980.
The movie, along with a 2014 book on the subject by this year’s Nobel Prize Literature winner Han Kang, introduced an entire generation to the darker aspects of the nation’s history and is credited with helping galvanize Koreans on the night of Dec. 3. Hundreds poured out onto Seoul’s streets after Yoon’s actions, braving bitterly cold conditions. The president backtracked within hours.
Han’s win in October catapulted her Human Acts—which explores how censorship and violence up-ended whole communities—back onto bestseller lists. As with the movie, the novel has since dominated trending topics on domestic social media. Since Tuesday, both have become memes on the internet, invoked by users to dissect Yoon’s shock move and the implications for the country.
“Are we living through Spring of Seoul in real life?” one X user said, referring the Korean title of the film. “Thank goodness, we haven’t forgotten this history,” another user said, urging people to revisit the film.
Many in South Korea are now calling for Yoon to be held accountable. In an abrupt U-turn Friday, Han Dong-hoon—head of Yoon’s ruling People Power Party—called for the president to be suspended from office quickly, increasing the chances he’ll be impeached in a vote set to take place over the next few days.
