The heavy confrontation at dinner between Sung-nam and the man from North Korea inspired further research on the current situation between North and South Korea. As of 2009, North and South Korea have been in an ongoing confrontation (still technically at war) between the two. After the Korean War (1950-1953) an effort to settle the conflict and pursue peace was made, but heavily provoked beginning in 1993 when North Korea began dabbling into missile testing. Furthermore, North Korea has made several threats toward South Korea (and the U.S. for that matter), abolishing their peace agreement. Recently, South Korea’s president “offered North Korea a ‘grand bargain’ Monday in which the North would receive much-needed economic assistance in return for giving up its nuclear program.” Because of North Korea’s dependency on China, much talk has been said about persuading China to reason and bring North Korea to multilateral negotiations. “The newspaper [The Korea Herald] reported that critics contend the North will not make any concessions until it achieves coveted bilateral talks with the US.”
After reading the article, the confrontation between the two characters in the movie is much more clear-especially the comment about North Korean leader Kim Jong-il.
Chick, Kristen. "South offers grand bargain to North Korea to give up nuclear weapons | csmonitor.com." The Christian Science Monitor | csmonitor.com. The Christian Science Monitor, 22 Sept. 2009. Web. 02 Oct. 2009.
Alex, I am glad you went ahead and researched some about North and South Korea. It is a very complicated history and you were able to bring together some of the facts here. I am glad you were able to find some insights to help you understand one of the scenes in the film, but I wish you would have written some more about your ideas and reactions to the film as a whole or at least some other issues/scenes.
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