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Lesego Valela Arts Correspondent

In a bid to raise awareness and popularity of Korean movies in Zimbabwe, the Korean Embassy held a film screening last Friday at Ster-Kinekor movies at Sam Levy Village in Borrowdale.

The embassy planned the event to raise awareness and popularity of Korean movies in Zimbabwe and as a token of appreciation to the Zimbabwe Republic Police’s work.

The embassy has been doing film screening since 2010 and this was the first concert held this year.

Republic of Korea Ambassador Bong-kae Do provided the seats, especially for the Zimbabwean police in this film festival hoping to enhance relations with the Korean community in Zimbabwe and to network, as well as to cooperate with each other.

The two movies that were being screened were “Nameless Gangster: Rules of the Time” and “Assassination”.

“Nameless Gangster: Rules of the Time” had more than three million viewers at the Korean box office history in 2012, while “Assassination” had more than 13 million viewers in 2015.

A group of 68 police officers got the honour to watch the first movie, “Nameless Gangster: Rules of the Time” at 3pm, especially considering their duties in dealing with crime.

The film “Nameless Gangster: Rules of the Time”, was set in the 1980s and 90s in Busan, Korea Republic, when corruption and crime was so rampant that the Government declared war on it in 1990.

“Assassination” was watched by the second group of the police officers and it started at 5pm.

The film is historical and it was set in 1930 in Seoul and Shanghai during the occupation of Korea and it depicts a group of Korean resistance fighters’ plan to assassinate a highly ranked Japanese officer.

The film stars Emmy award winning Lee Jung-jae from Netflix’s Squid game, a well-known movie.

Also in attendance to watch the films were officials from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Trade and the Ministry of Youth, Sport, Arts and Recreation, diplomats, film industry actors, the Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA), Almuni Association of Zimbabwe and may other Korean and local organisations.

Before the movie started, Ambassador Bong-ka Do said the Republic of Korea will provide a platform to bring solutions to challenges such as climate change.

“As the ambassador of the Republic of Korea, I want to draw your attention that the Republic of Korea’s Busan city is now competing to host the World Expo in 2030 under the theme of ‘Transforming Our World, Navigation Toward a Better Future’,” he said.

“Korea will provide a platform on how to address the global common challenges such as climate change, pandemics and digital divide.”