Bitter Sweet Seoul

Bitter Sweet Seoul is a crowdsourced experiment resulting in a vivid portrait of a city still searching for its identity. Originally commissioned as a promotional campaign by the city government, the movie draws from over 200 hours of short clips with different styles, themes, quality and tones submitted by Seoul’s inhabitants showing their everyday lives in the metropolis. Those clips were then combined in a 63-min feature movie by directors (and brothers) Park Chan-wook and Park Chan-kyong.

One scene, however, was shot by the directors themselves: a traditional Korean song performed on a boat floating on the Han river. The music echoes all throughout the movie, providing a sense of unity and gentle progression of scenes. The directors also inserted some footages of old-day Seoul, especially from the after Korean war period. Those two elements combined helped the directors dig into Korea’s yet troubled past, whose scars still shape the city and its inhabitants.