Why is it called Steel Rain 2? This is the question Steel Rain 2, which has been at the center of the spotlight as North Korea continues provocations, received after announcing its release this summer. Director Yang Woo Suk talked about the title of Steel Rain 2: Summit (hereinafter referred to as Steel Rain 2), which advocates a complementary sequel rather than a sequel that continues the previous story.
Steel Rain 2 depicts a crisis near the brink of war as the three leaders are kidnapped by a North Korean nuclear submarine in a coup d’état during a summit between the two Koreas and the United States. It shares the critical thinking of the road to peace between the two Koreas and the starting point of the war crisis caused by the outbreak of political upheaval in North Korea with the previous film Steel Rain.
However, the story of Steel Rain 2 does not follow the story of the previous film. As China has rapidly emerged as the hegemonic power, the Korean Peninsula is caught up with the deepening conflict between the US and China. And in the midst of this crisis, the movie presents a solution to peace regime.
Steel Rain began with the North Korean Leader crossing over to the South shortly after the coup d’état and showed a path to peace through cooperation between South Korean senior presidential secretary for foreign affairs and national security and a former agent of the North Korean Special Forces. However, Steel Rain 2 depicts a crisis on the brink of war in Northeast Asia after the three leaders are kidnapped and held in the North Korean nuclear submarine as the North Korean coup occurs during the summit between the two Koreas and the US.
Director Yang Woo Suk said, “If Steel Rain started from the imagination of ‘what if the right to decided regarding the peace issue of the Korean Peninsula had been completely left to the hands of South and North Korea?,’ Steel Rain 2 started from the reality of the Korean Peninsula caught up in complicated terrain such as the US-China conflict and Japan’s checks.”
The fact that Jung Woo Sung, who played a former agent of the North Korean Special Forces in Steel Rain, plays the role of the president of South Korea in Steel Rain 2, and Kwak Do Won, who played South Korean senior presidential secretary for foreign affairs and national security in Steel Rain, plays Supreme Guard Command Chief who leads the coup in Steel Rain 2 is also an extension of this critical thinking.
In other words, the movie shows the reality of even if the parties of the two Koreas change their camps and seek different solutions, the fate of the Korean Peninsula is not something that the South and the North can decide on their own. Steel Rain, which started as a fantasy but proceeded with the reality, and Steel Rain 2, which begins with the reality of the two Koreas of being in the center of storm among superpower, but dramatically follows the path to peace, have a complementary relationship.
Steel Rain 2, a realistic portrayal of a possible crisis between the divided Koreas and the great powers surrounding the Korean Peninsula with expanded critical thinking and greater scale, is scheduled to be released this summer.
