The character is loosely based on real-life taxi driver Kim Sa-bok, who ferried Jurgen Hinzpeter to Gwangju. Kim remained out of the public eye until the release of A Taxi Driver, when in September 2017, following the immense commercial and critical success of the film in South Korea, Kim's identity was finally confirmed by his son, Kim Seung-pil. The younger Kim shared with the media a photo of Jurgen Hinzpeter with his father and revealed that his father died of cancer in 1984, four years after the Gwangju events.
