Actor Park Si-Hoo returns to the screen after 10 years. Through the year-end and New Year music film "The Lord's Band," which delivers a religious resonance.
The film "The Lord's Band" (director Kim Hyeong-hyeop, produced by Studio Target) is a work that depicts what happens when a fake praise team is created in North Korea to earn foreign currency. Departing from the outlandish setup that an officer of the North Korean State Security Department organizes a fake praise team to earn foreign currency, it portrays the process by which 12 people with different goals become "real" from being "fake."
Among them, Park Si-Hoo appears as Second Lieutenant Park Gyo-sun of the State Security Department, who is tasked with creating the fake praise team. As a child, Park Gyo-sun wrote down his curiosity about a book his mother was reading in his diary. The book his mother read every Sunday was the Bible. Reading his diary aloud in front of the whole class and being censored, Park Gyo-sun did not know what the Bible was or what fate his mother suffered as the price for reading the book. Losing his mother as a result of pure ignorance, he becomes a State Security Department officer who, with guilt rooted unconsciously, shows even more fervent loyalty to the party.
In a North Korean system whose funds have been cut off by "sanctions on the North," Second Lieutenant Park Gyo-sun, who offers blind loyalty to the party, is mobilized for foreign currency earning. The fake praise team must move the Christian review board and obtain $200 million in funding from a Hungarian NGO (about 29.64 billion won). In a situation where religious believers are labeled "Jesus idiots," that is, reactionaries, taken to camps and tortured because of religious repression, the ragtag praise team is a motley victory band. Renaming themselves "The Lord's Band," they must hold a $200 million revival meeting in just two weeks.
Park Gyo-sun remains loyal to the party, unable to erase the wounds about his mother. He keeps the Bible his grandfather who fled to the South left behind and even proves his loyalty by personally killing a cousin who was branded a reactionary "Jesus idiot." What he seeks to fill with blind loyalty is success through promotion. But what truly moves him is the two weeks he spends with the ragtag fakes. Through the CCM and hymns called upon to fill the void left by the ragtag members, Park Gyo-sun discovers the "real" within himself.
In this process, the film is filled with Christian hues appropriate to the phrase "The Lord's Band." Those who monitor the fake praise team, including Park Gyo-sun and State Security Department Captain Kim Tae-seong (Jung Jin-woon), are gradually swept up by the praise of the victory band. It is expressed as natural grace to believers and by the power of music to nonbelievers.
The strong religious coloring is clearly a hurdle for this work. Grace and the sensibility of faith that nonbelievers cannot understand sometimes create gaps in the film. Led by Tae Hang-ho in the role of the band leader and with veteran dancer Choi Seon-ja in the role of the oldest member, the members deliver strong performances. The hardships they have endured also elevate the nobility of faith under persecution, which the audience must accept.
However, the singing of Jung Jin-woon, a member of idol group 2AM who is also active in musical theater, provides more emotion than expected. Moreover, the music of Park Si-Hoo and the members of the victory band awakens with greater power than anticipated. With their help, Park Si-Hoo, who returns to the screen for the first time in 10 years since the 2015 film "After Love," also does his part.
Opens on the 31st, rated for ages 15 and older, running time 100 minutes.
[Photo] Provided by Studio Target.
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