For the sake of full disclosure, when I first saw “Attack” when it originally opened in 1999, I didn’t like it. But seeing it now in light of the contemporary global situation in Iraq, the movie is much smarter than I’d realized. Here you have a very simple story about a band of misfits who bring anarchy to a corner gas station. Aside from dealing with the customers who breeze in and out, each comfortably set in their smug little modern lives, the band of four succeed in disrupting the rhythms of commerce and successfully swindle the authority figures of their power, all the while upholding basic principles of honor and fairness.

The four misfits are walking comic book characters who storm in dressed in primary colors and familiar typecasted roles: the leader “No Mark” (Lee Sung-jae), the rock ‘n‘ roller “Ddan Dda-ra” (Kang Seong-jin), the painter “Paint” (Yu Ji-tae) and the tough “Bulldozer” (Yu Oh-seong). What binds the group is a mystery and what inspires them to rob the gas station seems without motive. Like the four apocalyptic horsemen, they simply ride in to collect their due at the corner gas station.

As the antics unfold, the gas station itself takes on greater significance, slowly evolving into a metaphor of a lifestyle based on nothing but gas. When local gangs, high-profile gangsters and the police are caught in a three-way melee under the awnings of the Oilbank gas station (the significance of the name doesn’t go unnoticed), everything finally ends in a tense balance with everyone doused in gasoline and each holding a lighter, threatening to drop it. In my mind, this more than highlights the mess we’ve made in the Middle East, and by ‘we,’ I mean America.  

When I first saw “Attack,” I didn’t catch a lot of this, but on second viewing, the connections really hit home. It’s not to say this was something intended by the writer Park Jeong-woo or director Kim Sang-jin. It’s more a lucky accident that this movie is so much more pertinent now, especially in light of today’s skyrocketing gas prices. The film far exceeds what the director intended as a story about youth against authority and the realizing of personal dreams.

Though I can’t consider this film to be a Perfect 10, at least not as perfect an allegory as “The Host,” “Attack the Gas Station” still succeeds solely on an inspired idea, which is to have a band of misfits rob a gas station, take it over and, in the process, bring havoc and possible annihilation to a neighborhood block. Treat the whole thing as a comedy and you have a recipe for a very prophetic satire.

But don’t get me wrong, for all my talk about the movie’s socio-political significance, “Attack the Gas Station” is, at its heart, an energetic and fun movie.  There is a great underdog spirit at work as we get to see the powerless enjoy a momentary balancing of the scales of justice. Flashy, fast-paced, stylish — there’s even a boy-band montage where local thugs find their true calling in the music business, an ironic twist to the gangsters’ hyper-macho image.