Attack the Gas Station

Screening: Monday 28 September, 6:30pm

Kim Sang-jin | Korea | 1999 | DV | M medium level violence

An anarchic and surrealist satire about a gang of bored youths who rob a Seoul petrol station and then take over the place for the evening. The plan descends into chaos as they’re besieged by hostile customers, delivery boys and gangsters. “A Molotov cocktail disguised as a movie.” – Cinema Asia

“A gas station in a city is like an island. In this isolated space I tried to show, in a funny way, the attempts of alienated young people to overturn the existing order of the world.” Kim Sang-jin’s fourth feature was a sensation on Korean release, and there’s no reason to believe that its anarchic, anti-authoritarian humour won’t be to foreign tastes too.

Four disaffected young men (flashbacks eventually clarify their quite legitimate grievances against Korean society) have already once raided and trashed a gas station in Seoul. One bored evening, purely for kicks, they decide to go back and do it again—only to find that the manager now takes the precaution of emptying the till well before closing time. And so they take the joint over for the evening, humiliating the duplicitous manager (how many times can a man repair the same phone?), confining the staff (and any customers who have the temerity to complain about the service), ordering Chinese takeout food and finally provoking a huge pitched battle between gangsters, delivery boys and police on the forecourt.

Along the way every stitch in the social hierarchy is torn apart. And the bravura, star-making performances are matched at every turn by unexpected inventions in the script. Thrillingly directed with an organic sense of mischief, this is as funny as the best of Tashlin — but with a hard political edge. — Tony Rayns

(113 minutes, In Korean with English subtitles, DVD)