Last year, a political blockbuster gripped South Korea with a dramatization of a painful memory from its authoritarian past, when the assassination of President Park Chung-hee in 1979 led to a military coup and plunged the country into the iron grip of martial law.

South Korean lawmakers called on President Yoon Suk Yeol to resign or face impeachment after he declared martial law only to lift the order hours later.

It may seem that the wild predawn scenes in Seoul, with hundreds of armed troops and frantic lawmakers storming South Korea's parliament building after the president suddenly declared martial law, came out of nowhere.