Hijack 1971

Story: It's 1969 and Tae-in (Ha Jung-woo) is in the Air Force. During a training flight he is called to an emergency. A passenger plane has been taken over by a hostage-taker and is heading for North Korea. Tae-in's superior gives the order to shoot at one of the engines, forcing the plane to make an emergency landing. However, Tae-in refuses to obey the order because he doesn't want to put the passengers in danger. The plane flies over the border and after long negotiations, some of the passengers are brought back to South Korea in an exchange. But eleven of them still remain in the North. Every day, Tae-in wonders if he made the right decision. For his refusal to obey an order, he is also suspended from office for the time being.
A few years later, in 1971, Tae-in is a co-pilot for passenger flights. Rumors about his earlier decision are still going around and so he has never been allowed to do his first independent landing. Nevertheless, the pilot (Sung Dong-il) seems willing to finally let him land. Unfortunately, the plane is taken over by a hijacker. Yong-dae (Yeo Jin-goo) takes control of the machine with a knife and homemade bombs. And he wants to go to North Korea ...

Review: The title already suggests that this suspense-packed thriller is based on true events. At the beginning, we are also enlightened a little bit about the political wind that is blowing in the country at the time, in case you are not already aware of how hardened the fronts between North and South Korea are. This is also necessary so that we understand the hijacker's motive. Because "Hijack 1971" tries to give its characters some color. The first half hour of the movie might be a bit slow, but the pacing keeps picking up until the tension is so high at the end that it actually becomes too clear how much effort the director put in there to achieve this goal. A lot of cuts, shaky camera work to capture the panic and fear, and fitting sound effects, which is all very effective, but sometimes it also makes you realize that you are actually watching a movie - destroying the illusion of being right in the middle of the action. Despite everything, the movie is still gripping, though.

Special praise goes to the set. Since we are on the plane most of the time, it is essential to make it clear that we are in the 70s, even in this small space. But it works pretty well, sometimes just in small scenes, in which, for example, someone is shown the ashtray when he lights a cigarette. In addition, clothing and hairstyles also make it clear what period we are in. Unfortunately, the special effects are not always that well done. While the jets and the plane often look convincing enough from the outside, there are a few scenes where the plane looks kind of fake, especially when boarding and deboarding. Furthermore, visually, the villain seems a bit too clichéd. You can tell right from the first minute that he will be the hijacker, and it seems a bit strange that authorities don't keep an eye on him. It's also a shame that he somehow simply looks like a generic "North Korean", because his backstory is more vivid than is normally the case in movies like these.

Yeo Jin-goo ("Hwayi: A Monster Boy") gets more to do than just playing the antagonist. We also learn about his past and how much entire families are stigmatized and don't get a chance at a normal life as soon as a family member has proven to be a communist. The hijacker is more or less driven into a corner and he hopes for a better life in the North, although his reality is clearly clouded by some wishful thinking. But all in all, this makes his character more believable. The flashbacks, however, seem a bit arbitrary. When it comes to the villain, it would have been nice if we had gotten one or two more flashbacks, whereas Tae-in gets a few that seem unnecessary and are only supposed to intensify the drama, especially towards the end. That is too manipulative. Nevertheless, Ha Jung-woo ("The Closet") is able to portray the hero of the story with the necessary screen presence.

The co-pilot has to struggle with his own crisis of conscience, which also gives him a few more facets. The rest of the characters are limited to the bare essentials, though. It's a bit of a pity that we get so little information about the passengers. Only a few of them manage to give you a rough understanding of what kind of people they are. With a running time of just 100 minutes, there would have been enough time for more. On the other hand, that also means that director Kim Sung-han avoids filler material in his debut work. Instead, we get suspense and action, which make it all too clear that the movie took some liberties and that there are some deviations from the actual events. For example, in one scene, Tae-in steers the passenger plane as if he were still in the military sitting in a jet. Sadly, there are also a few moments when it is unclear why the young man doesn't simply get overpowered. Once again, this shows that the story works according to the somewhat clichéd rules of a thriller.

After a rather slow start, "Hijack 1971" develops into an exciting roller coaster ride that does almost everything right in cinematic terms. Sometimes, credibility suffers a little bit from the goal of luring the viewer right up in front of the screen, but especially at the end, you realize that you were emotionally more involved than you would have thought. The ending is well done, and the story, which is quite simple at its core, doesn't seem unnecessarily drawn out or too flat. Acting-wise, the movie also works on a high level, and the setting in the 70s gives the story a fresh coat of paint. If you are interested in gripping thrillers, "Hijack 1971" will be just the right genre food. But even those of you who just want to see an entertaining and captivating movie will not do anything wrong here.

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