Night Flight (2014)

Three teenage boys who were once close friends grow apart when they reach high school: Yong-ju lives hiding his true gender identity, Gi-woong becomes the leader of the school gang, and Gi-taek an obsessive manga fan. Tired of the constant malicious bullying by Gi-woong’s gang, Gi-taek betrays them by disclosing that Yong-ju has loved Gi-woong for years. Surrounded by an insecure boundary of the school and wounded by betrayals, the boys are driven into catastrophe. After a tryst with a lover in a derelict, condemned building housing the ‘Night Flight’ gay bar, Yong-ju roams the streets of night-time Seoul and bumps into his ex-best friend, Gi-woong. They are in the same class but have long since gone their separate ways. Having become embroiled in a fight, Gi-woong snatches Yong-ju’s bicycle in order to escape and doesn’t give it back. Yong-ju threatens him, but Gi-woong is impervious to his warnings – his gang is notorious for their cruel bullying of an eccentric classmate named Gi-taek. His attempts to regain their old friendship mean Yong-ju also runs the risk of becoming a target of this terrorising clan, but he refuses to give in. Instead, Yong-ju cleverly draws Gi-woong into a power game of mutual humiliation and burgeoning memories which triggers a dangerous emotional duel. The director of last year’s Panorama film White Night has chosen anonymous and abandoned urban spaces in which to depict the emotional turmoil gripping the two schoolboys. His film is a portrait of a society being eroded by the compulsion to achieve, a society in which there is no place for minorities, friendship or passion.