In a fiery televised statement, South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol defended his short-lived martial law decree as a necessary act of governance and vowed to “fight to the end” in the face of opposition-led attempts to impeach him,

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.