Gook review – Justin Chon’s fierce and forthright take on the La riots

Comic vignettes lead to tragedy in the Korean-American actor/director’s fictional reworking of a real 1991 shootingJustin Chon is the Korean-American actor and comic who had a returning role in the Twilight franchise; he here directs and stars in a punchy, freewheeling movie set around the La riots, shot in black-and-white, with something of Spike Lee’s style.

In some ways, it’s a fictional reworking of the real case of Latasha Harlins, an innocent black teenager shot dead by a Korean convenience store owner in Los Angeles about the same time as the Rodney King beating.Chon plays Eli, a young American-Korean guy who runs a shoe store with his brother Daniel (David So).

Kamilla (Simone Baker) is an African-American kid who likes hanging out with them, to the rage of her family and particularly her brother, Keith (Curtiss Cook Jr), who is suspicious of the Koreans.

A grumpy convenience store owner,

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