Movie · 2017 · Action, Drama, History · 2h 18m · Korean
Curator score: 8.4/10 (142.3K ratings)
Based on true events, an untold story of a taxi driver.
Overview
May, 1980. Man-seob is a taxi driver in Seoul who lives from hand to mouth, raising his young daughter alone. One day, he hears that there is a foreigner who will pay big money for a drive down to Gwangju city. Not knowing that he’s a German journalist with a hidden agenda, Man-seob takes the job.
Ratings
Curator score: 8.4/10
IMDb: 7.9/10
Letterboxd: 4.20/5
Rotten Tomatoes: 97%
Metacritic: 69
TMDB: 8.0/10
Director
Jang Hoon
Production
The LAMP, Showbox
Cast
Song Kang-ho, Thomas Kretschmann, Yoo Hai-jin, Ryu Jun-yeol, Park Hyuk-kwon, Choi Gwi-hwa, Cha Soon-bae, Shin Dam-su, Ryu Sung-hyun, Um Tae-goo, Min-hee Park, Lee Jung-eun, Eun-mi Yoo, Seo Hyun-woo, Ko Chang-seok, Jeon Hye-jin, Joey Albright, Jung Jin-young, Ryu Tae-ho, Jeong Seok-yong
Where to watch
Amazon Prime Video, Rakuten Viki, Amazon Prime Video with Ads
Curator Review
Verdict
A gripping historical drama that turns a reluctant working-class errand into a moving act of witness and courage. It balances crowd-pleasing momentum with real political urgency, and its emotional payoff is strong without losing sight of the underlying brutality.
Best for
Viewers who like based-on-true-events political dramas
Fans of emotional crowd-pleasers with suspense
Anyone interested in modern Korean history
Audiences who appreciate ordinary people becoming heroes
Skip if
You want a purely action-driven thriller
You prefer light, low-stakes entertainment
You are looking for a strictly factual documentary style
You avoid films centered on state violence and repression
Overview
A Taxi Driver is built like a mainstream thriller, but its real power comes from how it gradually reveals the scale of the historical tragedy at its center. What begins as a practical money-making trip becomes a tense, human story about conscience, survival, and the cost of bearing witness. The film is accessible and emotionally direct, yet it never trivializes the events it dramatizes.
Worth noting
The tonal shift is handled with confidence: early humor and everyday frustration give way to mounting dread, then to anger and grief. Song Kang-ho gives the film its heartbeat, making the taxi driver feel funny, flawed, and deeply human before the stakes fully arrive. The foreign journalist angle adds urgency and a sense of historical record without overwhelming the personal story.
Bottom line
This is the kind of film that works both as a political history lesson and as a moving piece of popular cinema. It is polished, propulsive, and sincerely emotional, with a strong sense of place and period. The result is a crowd-pleaser with moral weight, and one of the more effective recent dramas about ordinary people caught inside extraordinary violence.
Top Letterboxd reviews
Madison 🎭 (4★) · 1640 likes
butter cookie tins are good for food, sewing materials, AND hidden footage of war crimes
Logan (5★) · 1226 likes
Fuck you Scorsese, you little dweeb, did your Taxi Driver help dismantle the propaganda of the South Korean government during the Gwangju Uprising? Didn't think so
Anyways holy fuck I loved this movie. It's an excellent political thriller about the Gwangju uprising, where the people of South Korea fought for democracy and were met with beatings and shootings from the military. The ever oppressive government completely stopped any accurate information on the atrocities they were committing from ever leaving the… more
LeSchroeck (4.5★) · 638 likes
Wow. Was so unbeschwert mit einem nachgesungenen Popsong beginnt, endet als ergreifende Geschichtsstunde und Loblied auf die Menschlichkeit. Hier trifft die fiktionalisierte Geschichte eines sich durchs Leben mogelnden Taxifahrers auf die echte Geschichte des Reporters Jürgen Hinzpeter, der als einziger westlicher Journalist Bilder vom Gwangju-Massaker im Mai 1980 aufnehmen und außer Landes bringen konnte.
Den Taxifahrer gab es, so viel ist überliefert. Ob er wirklich ein Witwer war, der weder die Miete, noch Schuhe für seine Tochter zahlen konnte, ist… more
Sean Baker · 618 likes
Watched on Blu-ray released by Well Go USA. South Korea's submission to the Foreign Language Film Award of the 90th Annual Academy Awards. Heard alot about this film when over in Korea. Had a real impact on audiences from what I've heard.
Song Kang-ho is once again fantastic as well as the entire cast which includes Thomas Kretschmann. Very high production value. And strong heart-strings tugging score by Young-wook Jo. Interesting mix of tones.
Will remind you of Argo, Amelie, Salvador and even Dunkirk. Would make for a great double feature with The President’s Last Bang.
Ian (4★) · 609 likes
Don't watch this movie without a box of tissues ready. Such a powerful film that celebrates ordinary people who are heroes in extraodrinary circumstances.
A road movie that becomes politically awakening, with an emphasis on witnessing injustice and changing perspective.
Topics
historical drama, political thriller, based on true events, South Korean cinema, 1980s, state repression, journalism, emotional, crowd-pleaser, period piece