“Black Knight” (택배기사)

By Jae-Ha Kim
Substack
June 10, 2023

☆☆☆☆
5-8 (played by Kim Woo-bin)
Yoon Sa-wol (played by Kang You-seok)
↑Note: Korean names denote the surname followed by the given name.

“Black Knight” takes place 40 years after a comet crashed into Earth, nearly destroying the entire population. The Korean series is clearly a parable for what could happen to our world if we don’t take better care of the most vulnerable among us.

Climate change and man-made toxins have made oxygen and food an expensive commodity that the rich try to horde for themselves. Divided into caste systems, the elite live in domed cities with access to food, fresh air and vegetation. The middle class live in a concrete jungle. Both groups have QR codes embedded on their hands that give them access to food and oxygen. But the ultra poor — known as refugees — have no QR codes and little means to survive. Which is what the rich want.

In this world, children don’t want to grow up to be sports stars. Rather, they want to be Deliverymen like 5-8 (Kim Woo-bin) — the most famous of all the couriers who deliver the necessities people need to survive.

5-8 is more than just a Deliveryman. He’s also a freedom fighter who wants equal rights for everyone. When a scrappy refugee named Sa-wol (Kang You-seok) encounters 5-8, he tells the hero that he wants to be a courier, too. Sa-wol isn’t thinking about altruism so much as survival. Becoming a Deliveryman means that his social status will be elevated and that he won’t have to scramble for food and fresh air.

Deliverymen are lauded because they literally provide life by bringing oxygen and food into homes. But they also are ace fighters who ward off thieves who try to steal the precious commodity to sell for an outrageous profit. But the bandits are still better than the chaebols, who believe that genocide is the best way to save earth. Annihilate all the refugees and save all the resources for the elite few.

The overly entitled Chunmyung heir Ryu-seok (Song Seung-heon) has no interest in following his father’s orders or establishing an equal world where no one is segregated between the haves and the have nots. Ryu-seok’s method of dealing with the lower class is to simply kill them all. His vision of paradise doesn’t include people who he views as less than.

In the pentiultimate episode, the chaebol sends trucks into the slums, telling residents they are purifying the polluted air. In reality, they’re spraying toxic chemicals meant to kill.

I watched “Black Knight” during the days when the United States was “trapped under a thick, orange blanket of smog … as the Canadian wildfires spewing noxious fumes across the border.”

CNN reported:

The oppressive smoke this week has postponed professional sports games, grounded flights due to poor visibility, shuttered zoos and beaches and forced many to mask up outdoors. Climate experts have warned such events are becoming more frequent due to human-induced climate change.

And I thought, how long before fiction becomes reality? And when will reality take a turn for the better?

Airdates: Netflix released all six episodes — each about 44- to 50-minutes long — on May 12, 2023.

© 2023 JAE-HA KIM | All Rights Reserved