- Actors: Jared Grimes, Doh Kyung-Soo, Park Hye-Su
- Director: Kang Hyoung-Chul
- Disc Format: Dolby, Subtitled, Surround Sound, Widescreen
- Number of discs: 1
- Rated: Not RatedNR
- Studio: Well Go USA
- Release Date: June 18, 2019
- Run Time: 133 minutes
When I heard the
title of the 2018 South Korean musical, Swing
Kids, my first thoughts were of the 1993 American film with the same name.
Despite both being backstage musicals set during wartime, I assumed that
similarities would end there and the re-used title was merely a coincidence
rather than a reference. Though it may be true that the filmmaker did not
directly intend to make a connection between the two films, the similarities
are also impossible to ignore. Swing Kids
(’93) is a film about German youths attempting to grow up and enjoy ordinary
lives appreciating swing music during an era of the Nazi regime and war that
was anything but ordinary. Similarly, Swing
Time (2018) is about a group of people finding simple pleasures in dance
during wartime. Even more remarkably, while Swing
Kids (’93) is an American film with German protagonists, Swing Kids (2018) is a South Korean film
with North Korean characters as the primary focus. Most importantly, both films
(along with the French Joyeux Noel)
celebrate the empathetic powers of music and artistic expression during wartime,
specifically considering those on the opposite side from the country in which
the film is made.
