The Mayor (2017 film)

The Mayor (Korean: 특별시민; Hanja: 特別市民; RR: Teukbyeolsimin, lit. "Special Citizen") is a 2017 South Korean political drama film written and directed by Park In-je, starring Choi Min-sik, Kwak Do-won, and Shim Eun-kyung. The film was released in South Korea on April 26, 2017 and in the US and Canada on April 28.

Plot

Seoul's passionate and hands-on mayor, Byun Jong-gu, claims to love only the city of Seoul. However, in reality, he is a shrewd political mastermind, meticulously managing his image while aiming for ultimate power.

Teaming up with Shim Hyuk-soo, a top strategist in election manipulation, and bringing in the fearless young advertising expert Park Kyung, Jong-gu sets his sights on the presidency. To pave his way, he challenges history by running for an unprecedented third term as Seoul’s mayor.

But as fierce attacks from rival candidates escalate and unforeseen incidents arise, his ambitious re-election campaign faces crisis after crisis.

Cast

Production

Filming commenced on April 28, 2016 and wrapped four months later.

Writer-director Park In-je began working on the script in 2014. Park said the film was not made to focus on the dark side of political elections, but as a means to shed light on human's "unremitting desire for power". The film also marks star Choi Min-sik's second time ever to portray a politician after 1995's MBC TV series The Fourth Republic, in which he played late President Kim Dae-jung. Unlike The Fourth Republic, the character of Byeon in The Mayor was not modeled after a particular politician. Choi said: "I embodied the character by synthesizing all the images that I had about politicians… Up until [shooting the film], I had never been directly engaged in politics or met closely with politicians… After trying to think of the image of politicians, I concluded that speech is the most important skill for them. Politicians rise and fall from the words they used. So I decided to focus on having a good command of language when playing Byeon Jong-gu".

Release

The Mayor was released on 1,152 screens in South Korea on April 26, 2017. It topped the box office on its opening day, with 185,776 tickets sold. During its opening weekend, it earned $6.1 million from 904,000 admissions over five days ranking first at the box office.

The film was released in the US and Canada on April 28, 2017 and was distributed by Well Go USA.