Whereas people from Japan, Vietnam and Taiwan are crazy about Korean dramas and pop music, people from Denmark, France or Canada are more likely to have watched Korean films before arriving in Korea. With a busy and internationally successful film industry, Seoul and Korea have become the backdrop for quite a number of movies. SEOUL takes you to some of the most beautiful settings in Seoul that were used in films by three of the most prolific contemporary Korean filmmakers.
Bukchon & Seongbuk-dong
In "3 Iron" (Kor. Bin Jip or empty house'), the 2004 film by the infamous Korean director Kim Ki-duk, a rather taciturn guy rides through the city of Seoul on his silver-colored, spot-free BMW, attaching advertisements for delivery Chinese, chicken and pizza on doors in such a way that they cover the door lock. It's his method to spot temporarily empty houses that he then uses to live in. While riding from neighborhood to neighborhood, this motorcyclist draws a perfect picture of the different characters of the city, almost creating a sociological profile of Seoul. He drives through well-off neighborhoods like Seongbuk-dong or Pyeongchang-dong in the hilly north of the city, but also explores poor neighborhoods, old, decaying apartment complexes just years away from complete destruction, like the Jeongreung Sky Apartments, built in 1971, just a stone's throw away from the rich lodgings of ambassadors and movie stars. The m ost famous area explored by the motorcyclist, who is at some point is joined by an unhappy wife he picks up on his forays, is Bukchon, the hanok village between the two palaces. They walk down Gahoe-dong 31-gil, a rather steep alley lined by hanok , traditional Korean houses, newly restored to their former beauty. At the top of the hill is a stunning view of Seoul's inner city's high rises, including the landmark Jongro Tower and Namsan N Seoul Tower, forming a nice contrast with the sturdy roof tiles of the hanok in the foreground. Bukchon, translated as "northern village," is the area of town where in the times of the Joseon Dynasty (13921910) the yangban , the aristocratic elite, used to livein convenient vicinity of the royal court. It is an area that seems to have kindled director Kim Ki-duk's creativity.
Bukchon is best explored starting from Anguk Station, Line 3. If you exit through Exit 6, after a few meters you will reach a Tourist information booth. There, maps of the area are handed out, making it easiest to find the famous Hanok alley at the top of the mountain.
Seongbuk-dong can be reached from Hanseong University Station, Line 4, Exit 6. Walk up the main road for about a kilometer.
Suyeon Sanbang will be at the right, in a small alley across from Deoksu church. Open from noon to 10:30pm. T. (02) 764-1736.
His more recent movie "Dream" (Kor. Bimong , 2008) also takes place there. "Dream" is basically a "journey that takes you along the many remaining hanok in Seoul", as one Korean blogger poignantly put it. As the workshop for the male protagonist, a seal maker, served a gallery-caf in Gahoe-dong that has since closed down; the female protagonist designs her fashion in another modernized hanok , as well; some scenes take the viewer into the rooms of luxury hanok -hotel Rakkojae; and the hanok -style town office of Hyehwa-dong has been transformed into a police station.
"Dream" also visits places in Seongbuk-dong. The two main figures, connected through a s t r a n g e d r e a m m y s t e r y, v i s i t a d o c t o r / psychologist/shamanist who set up her office in Yi Tae-jun's hanok , the Suyeon Sanbang. Yi Tae-jun was one of the most prolific writers of Korean modernity, building a rather large mansion there in the 1930s that incorporated modern Japanese influe ncesmost visible in the glass (and not paper) windowsinto the traditional architectural style of Korea. His granddaughter turned this home into a cozy teahouse. It feels like entering someone's living room; the home-made tea further emphasizes that. In the movie, however, the space feels cold and scary, due to the energy the shaman counselor exudes. The twisted and surreal film ends with white ice and a red bridge Seongsan Bridge in the west.
Hangang River
Bridges along the Hangang River are the backdrop for many a movie. For Bong Junho's "The Host" (Kor. Goemul , 2006), one of the most successful and critically acclaimed movies in recent Korean film history, the bridges become the main scene of action, allowing the viewer to see them from new perspectives, climbing through them and under them and across them. A monster that mutated from waste jumps out of the Hangang one day and abducts a child, hiding it in some corner under a bridge. As the story continues, the child' family uses all the weapons at their disposalbe they arrows, bullets or improvised Molotov cocktailsto find the child and kill the monster. They hurry along the southern banks of the river, passing or traversing almost every bridge, from Seongsan in the west to Banpo in the east, which becomes the rainy scene of an unsuccessful attempt by the family to shoot the monster. One of the little kiosks at Hangang Park on Yeouido serves not only as the family's source of income but also as their home and the headquarters of the search. Unfortunately, these little stores have been replaced by modern and smartly equipped convenience stores in the course of the reconstruction project on the Yeouido river banks. Nonetheless, Hangang River Park is always a worthwhile trip, with the water taxis taking you across longer distances, for example toward Olympic Park in the east or Seonyudo Park in the west.
The vast hangang Park can best be reached from Yeoinaru Station, Line 5, Exit 2 or 3. Walk east and you will pass Wonhyo, Hangang Iron, Hangang, Dongjak and finally Banpo Bridgeall of them backdrops for "The Host." Nonetheless, Hangang Park is always a worthwhile trip, with the water taxis taking you across longer distances, for example toward Olympic Park in the east or Seonyudo Park in the west.
Namsan Cable Car
Hong Sang-soo is truly a master of variation. He manages to narrate the same story over and over again, in ever different constellations, with different settings, and (mostly) different actors. The backdrop of his movies is usually the archetypical Korea of the 70s and 80s that is slowly disappearingsimple, often almost rotten motels; down-to - earth restaurants with interchangable names like "Our Restaurant"; drinking holes. Yet the movie that he is most famous for, " Virgin Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors" (Kor. Oh! Sujeong , 2000), features two scenes that are very easy to recognize, making them stand out against the otherwise u n s p e c i a l s e t t i n g s e v e n m o r e . O n e i s Gyeongbokgung Palace, the biggest of the five palaces in Seoul. The other one is Namsan Cable Car. Taking the cable car to reach the top of Mt. Namsan, is, for the main female protagonist Sujeong, a trip that lets her gain a distance from what's be en happening. Rising high up above Seoul serves as a metaphor for her making up her mind. Coincidentally, the cable car gets stuck midwaya hint to the fact that reaching new heights is not always positively connoted. The film is shot entirely in black and white, strangely setting the story into a non-time, detaching it from historicity. This is successful only to a certain degree. If you take the cable car in 2010, ten years after the film was shot, the utter speed in which this city changes becomes starkly apparent. Time is relative, after allwhat is a decade elsewhere, is an era in Korea. And this is what is most strikingthe fact that these films almost serve as a visual memory of the city.
Other film settings
Kim Ki-duk's "Samaria" (2004) is set partly in the garden-park on the island of Seonyudo, attached to the southern river banks by a rainbow-shaped bridge. The two girls of this movie play in weeds, hide behind sculptures, and walk through in the golden ginkgo leaves of early fall. "Modern Boy" (2008, dir. Jeong Ji-woo, feat. Kim Hye-su), a historical movie set in the time when Korea was colonized by Japan, follows around a dandy in the Seoul of the Jazz Age. Locations that most Seoulites are familiar with Myeong-dong, Gyeongbokgung Palace, Seoul Station and the rooftop garden of the Shinsegae Separtment Store in Myeong-dongare shown (or painted in the background) in their original form.
- The article courtesy of Seoul magazine
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