South Korea A Taxi Driver returned 6.4× its production cost, earning $81.9M against a $12.8M budget — one of the highest-return South Korea films in our catalog.
Synopsis
택시운전사
“Based on true events, an untold story of a taxi driver.”
May, 1980. Man-seob is a taxi driver in Seoul who lives from hand to mouth, raising his young daughter alone. One day, he hears that there is a foreigner who will pay big money for a drive down to Gwangju city. Not knowing that he’s a German journalist with a hidden agenda, Man-seob takes the job.
Audience Engagement
837 audience reviews — more than 98% of South Korea films in our index.
Popularity sits at the 85th percentile among South Korea films.
Reception Benchmarks
Ranked #135 of 1,397 South Korea films indexed here (90th percentile by TMDB audience score).
Rating is +1.2 points above the South Korea average of 6.9/10.
Among South Korea Action productions specifically: #16 of 266 (top 6%).
Budget & Box Office Efficiency
At a 2h 18m runtime, production spent $93K per minute on screen and earned $594K per minute back.
Titles With Overlapping Themes
Films and series that share thematic tags with A Taxi Driver. Number on each card indicates how many keywords overlap.
Other Titles From The LAMP
Action + Drama in South Korea
114 South Korea titles in our catalog blend the Action and Drama genres. Below: the top-rated of them (excluding A Taxi Driver itself).
The 2016–2018 South Korea Window
Among 268 South Korea films we catalog from this window, A Taxi Driver places #33 — near the top of its class.
The 2010s South Korea Landscape
Catalog density by release year across the 2010s in South Korea, 719 titles in total. Highlighted year (yellow) is when A Taxi Driver premiered alongside 88 others.
Position in Catalog
Released alongside 88 other South Korea films in 2017.
The 882nd South Korea title from South Korea we index (earliest catalogued entry: 1955).
Our South Korea catalog contains 1,397 titles in total (931 films).
Thematic Fingerprint
Tags on A Taxi Driver, grouped by how common each theme is across the full Asian catalog. Rare tags are more distinctive signals.
- gwangju · 5
- democracy · 4
- historical event · 4
- taxi · 3
- 1980s · 18
- taxi driver · 10
- protest · 10
- democratization movement · 8
- gwangju uprising · 6
- based on true story · 98
- south korea · 97
Production Details
| Primary Country | South Korea |
|---|---|
| Original Language | Korean |
| Spoken Languages | Korean, Japanese, English, German |
| Production Companies | The LAMP, Showbox |
| Runtime | 2h 18m |
| Release Date | August 2, 2017 |
| IMDb | tt6878038 |