SEOUL, South Korea — When foreign correspondents cover dangerous situations, they often depend on local assistants, who in many cases take greater risks than they do. In the bloody month of May 1980 in Gwangju, South Korea, one such invisible hero was a taxi driver whose name may or may not have been Kim Sa-bok.

As the military dictatorship of Chun Doo-hwan slaughtered people in Gwangju who were calling for democracy, Mr. Kim, if that was his name, played a pivotal role in telling the world what was happening. He managed to get a German TV reporter, Jürgen Hinzpeter, past the military cordon that surrounded the city, not once but twice. Mr. Hinzpeter was one of the few foreign correspondents to document the carnage, and his footage was seen around the globe.

Mr. Hinzpeter, who died last year at 78, has long been celebrated in South Korea for his part in exposing Mr. Chun’s atrocities. A memorial to the journalist stands in Gwangju.

And this week, it is his driver’s turn to be recognized. A film, “A Taxi Driver,” opened Wednesday in theaters across the country, telling the story of the uprising from the point of view of a fictionalized version of Mr. Kim — who, despite the efforts of Mr. Hinzpeter and others over the years, has never been identified.