On April 17, 2007, Virginia Tech undergraduate student Seung-Hui Cho walked through the massive university campus guns blazing. His final victim was himself; when the authorities arrived, he shot himself in the head. Thirty-two others were left dead, seventeen wounded. This documentary explores and tries to understand why.
Understandably, Cho's immediate family elected not to participate in this film, but the BBC spoke to many people including his barber and two who tried to befriend him on campus: a member of staff and a room mate.
There were certainly signs of mental instability, but the main concern was that he would harm himself. Though he expressed admiration for, even solidarity with, Columbine High School shooters Harris and Klebold, no one could have dreamed he would go on not only to emulate but to excel them.
Apart from the enormity of both shootings and the fact that they were planned, this is where the resemblance ends. Harris and Klebold were two youths who hated the world for the sake of it. Cho sufered from selective mutism, and was unable to make friends, though it is clear he wanted to and that in his own way he tried. In particular if he had managed to find a girlfriend his obvious energies may have been channelled into other, positive directions. Alas.
It is clear too from this documentary that although Cho regarded himself as a victim of bullying, abuse and worse, this was all in his head. His attempts to get near females were rebuffed because they found him creepy. Many young men have this problem, often because they are genuinely creepy, but few go to such extremes to exact their revenge on a world that has rejected them.
