Review of Bogota: City of the Lost / 보고타: 마지막 기회의 땅, directed by Kim Seong-je

If you’re new here and stumbled upon this blog through the mythical powers of the Internet, welcome! My name is Ashley, and I began this website as a way to document everything I was watching and reading as a bit of a digital archive. I used to work professionally as a film critic for three years, so this was a way of also exploring my interests.

Lately I’ve had a lot of time to dedicate to the blog, as I fell into an unexpected era of unemployment. What a great time to fall into this period (I say this somewhat sarcastically), as the fields I was looking to go into have frozen hiring, or simply don’t have the budget to bring on another person.

That said, I’ve been spending a lot of time working on my blog and catching up on my movie and television backlog. I am forever grateful to have the finances to sit down and do this for a little bit, before job hunting, and that I can make a little bit of money off of the advertisements you see floating in the corner of my site.

Because I have all of this newfound free time, I’ve been on top of all of the new releases. Korean cinema was my specialty when I was a critic, as I speak Korean, and I did my master’s thesis on Korean women’s literature during the colonial period and the time directly after it and the war.

So Korea has a special place in my heart, especially as I’ve studied there twice. My interests often are on the concept of han, or this deep sorrow that’s distinctly Korean (but debatable—some scholars say that han is a colonial construct, as the Japanese would depict Koreans in this way) so when I find new Korean shows and movies, I’m on the lookout for how this manifsts.

I opened Netflix one day and saw that Bogota: City of the Lost was released on the platform the previous day, and I was interested immediately. I had heard of the movie when I was keeping tabs on the film festivals, but never realized it was going to be on Netflix. So I sat down and watched it one morning!

Let’s get into the review. I don’t want to ramble too much in the introduction.

After moving to Bogota after the Asian Financial Crisis, one young man gets caught up in a life of crime.

This movie begins with the Asian Financial Crisis. If you’re not familiar with the broader impacts of this historical event, or how it pertains to Korea specifically, I would do some research after or before watching the movie. It’s the backdrop of a lot of Korean cinema sometimes, and it sent a lot of people down a path of financial ruin for a bit.

Our protagonist in this movie is Guk-hee, who is 19 at the beginning of the film. His family is moving to Bogota in search of a better future, especially as a pathway to the United States, because of the impacts of the Asian Financial Crisis.

When they first arrive in Bogota, they have hope for that better future, but it proves to be a lot more difficult than it seems. There is crime on the streets, and Guk-hee and his parents are looking for work. Guk-hee is recruited by a fellow Korean in the area: Sergeant Park.

Park has power of the area by basically monopolizing the Korean clothing that comes into the area. A lot of the Koreans in Bogota work to sell clothes that are imported from Korea, and Guk-hee starts working for him as a bit of a logistics guy, moving goods from one spot to another.

But the danger of their activities becomes even more apparent from the get-go when Guk-hee hears gunshots from the ground below him. He falls to the ground, knocking the boxes down with him, as he watches what unfolds on the street level. This is only the beginning of what’s to come.

It’s during a delivery, when the Colombian customs officials come after the clothing shipments, that Guk-hee proves his worth to Sergeant Park, as well as customers broker Soo-yeong. He becomes a valuable part of the business and more trusted by the people around him, allowing more power to come into his hands.

Throughout the course of the movie, we see the ripple effects as Guk-hee becomes more powerful himself and basically is tangled up in the world of crime. He thinks that he can change the Korean community and their conditions in Bogota, and while the years pass throughout the movie, it seems like just that can happen.

But ambition can kill you in the end, and Guk-hee has to watch the consequences of his actions unfold in real time, especially towards the end of the movie. It’s quite sad in that sense, as if they had made it into the US, maybe his life would have looked a little different. Instead, they’re searching for ways to survive, especially because he does this because he sees his parents won’t be able to make it on their own.

Overall Thoughts

It’s fascinating to me to see Song Joong-ki in these movies that are more international focused. He was even in Vincenzo, which one could say has an international bend to it. I think it suits him, especially now that he’s married to a Brit and living in Italy. He’s as good as ever as an actor, although I think I would like to see him in a different kind of movie or show soon.

That said, I think this is an okay movie. I think it does a solid job of showing the lives of Koreans who left Korea in search of better lives during this period. There was Korean migration before the 2000s; I remember once I stumbled on a book of Korean migrant workers in Mexico, which was fascinating for me to learn about.

As a movie though I wanted a little bit more from it overall. The characters felt a little too flat and the dialogue was just okay, which made it a bit harder to watch towards the end. This might’ve been better as a television show so we had the chance to learn more about the setting and people involved.

I say check it out if you’re interested! It might not have been my cup of tea entirely, but someone out there surely loves it. Taste is so subjective at the end of the day.

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