Two-part documentary Crush (now streaming on Paramount+) details the tragedy that occurred in Seoul, South Korea on Halloween, 2022, when 159 people died in a crowd crush on the overpacked streets in the Itaewon district. Seoul residents, American students and U.S. soldiers share harrowing first-person accounts here, accompanied by cell-phone and surveillance-cam footage capturing the horrific events of that night. It might go without saying that any agoraphobes or claustrophobes out there may find such footage especially upsetting, so be warned that this piece of riveting journalism doesn’t look away from scenes of chaos and death.
Opening Shot: A low-angle closeup of the brick alley in Itaewon.
The Gist: “It wasn’t an accident. I consider it a criminal act.” That’s how one voice describes what happened that night in Itaewon. The documentary cycles through a series of somber faces, survivors of the deadly crush, before settling on Arianna Barra, a student from Santa Fe who was studying abroad in Seoul in 2022. The trauma she endured on Halloween of that year, she says, resulted in her current fear of crowded trains and sidewalks. That fateful night, she and a group of friends wanted to experience the vibrant nightlife of Itaewon, and get an eyeful of all the garish Halloween costumes. It was simply going to be a fun evening out.
Then we meet Cholong Kim, who provides key context by sharing some of Korea’s more broad cultural values: The older generation values hard work over everything else, and considers play and free time to be wasteful. This sets up Itaewon, where youthful patrons gather to eat and drink and dance in bars and nightclubs, and where marginalized communities gather to socialize, as something to be looked down upon. The neighborhood endured bad publicity after it was linked to a Covid-19 outbreak, and 2022 marked the first Halloween in the borough without pandemic-related restrictions. It’s always been a busy, crowded area; after a couple years of lockdowns, it’s not hard to see how it would be busier than ever, as cooped-up partiers sought release.
Barra and a number of others then share how packed the subway to Itaewon was that night. They got off and navigated much bigger crowds than usual to get out of the station and onto the street – which was more jam-packed than ever. She and her friends were packed in tight, doing their damnedest to stay together; Barra eventually made her way to a wall, hoping it would help her from being hurt. Logistically, it was a recipe for disaster: Subways dumped passengers onto parallel streets one block apart, and an alley was the conduit between the streets. Massive throngs of people were trying to make their way through the alley in opposing directions – and one of those directions included a downward slope. This is about when people started calling 911 and requesting help, but it just wasn’t coming. The stories and footage get increasingly nightmarish from here, of bodies being compressed in the crush, of people turning blue and passing out, of people unsuccessfully trying to pull others out of the crowd, but it was packed too tight. “I was crushed flat,” goes one account. “Fear exceeds language at some point, and I could feel the fear,” goes another.
What Shows Will It Remind You Of? The similarly harrowing tick-tock of tragedy that is 72 Seconds in Rittenhouse Square, also on Paramount+; Crush also has the immediacy and intensity of the Thai-cave-rescue doc The Rescue.
Our Take: Crush is incredibly hard to watch, but like all journalism, it’s informative, a cautionary tale and a call for those in power to take responsibility for the disaster. The first episode details the horror; the second looks at the aftermath, and examines the curiously delayed response from law enforcement and first responders. It’s a straightforward account consisting primarily of firsthand testimony from people who seem grateful and lucky to be alive to tell their stories – stories of seeing people turn blue from asphyxiation, accompanied by awful cell phone footage of civilians performing CPT on bodies on the streets. It’s a simple approach to postmortem news, offering valuable retrospective commentary on the events a year later, but never dulling the emotional impact of people’s on-the-ground experiences. It’s brutally effective.
Sex and Skin: None.
Parting Shot: American student Tia Barre recalls what she told herself as she was caught in the throng: “You’re going to die, you just need to get prepared. I just was ready.”
Sleeper Star: The film editor – because all those traumatized faces at the beginning of the first episode quite effectively foreshadow the sorrow and anguish of the story to come.
Most Pilot-y Line: One voice overheard in the crowd: “Push, push, push!” A second voice replies: “Don’t push, don’t push!”
Our Call: Crush is just damn good, effective journalism. STREAM IT.
John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.