Cop Movies are Big in Korea (and Trend-Following)

Over the last few weeks I've been to a couple of Western movies (Troy and Spiderman 2) and a few Korean ones as well: 여친소 (Yeochinso/Windstruck); 올드보이 (Old Boy); 공공의적 (Gong-gong-ui Jock/Public Enemy; 와일드카드 (Wild Card); and 범죄의 재구성 (Beomjwi-ui Jaegooseong/The Big Swindle). I really liked all of the Korean movies (actually the Western ones seemed pretty predictable compared to the Korean fare) but found it interesting that 4 of the 5 (all but Old Boy) were cop movies. (To be fair, in The Big Swindle it was more about the robbers than the cops--still, the theme was intact.) Maybe this is typical to movies in general (going in phases, all of the movies are from the last year) or maybe it's just how (again) in Korea things are very much fads; where once a theme gets started it's difficult to stop it.


Public Enemy, WildCard, The Big Swindle and Old Boy

With that in mind, I think of my night out on Saturday. A group of friends and I had dinner and a movie in the 동대문 (Dongdaemoon) area then headed to 대학로 (pronounced Daehan-ro, but the Korean spelling is Dae-Hak-Ro: Daehak means university, ro is street, so (as you may have guessed) it is a street near universities--so, of course, there are tons of bars there). It was raining as a typhoon is in town (see the typhoon tracker page for updates of when one is on its way here) so there weren't many people out on the town. (I, however, didn't mind it as the rain here is pretty warm and I was in shorts a shirt and cut-away sneakers...really quite comfortable.) We went to about 5 places before finding one called 꾼 (Kkoon, an intersting name). The gal running the place said it was their first business day, but the place was empty. The music, however, was really good so I said, "Service.", as in: what will you give us to come in? She offered plates of snacks and such...sold! The prices were lower than I'm used to, too...a good place.

So, how does this connect? The ambiance. The bar was like many other ones out there with tables, low lighting, club music, and a table or two that has a trough in the middle for ice and imported beer and coolers (we had 8 different kinds). I guess this is a safe business strategy as it may be fatal to go out on a limb with a new concept in this town unless it does very well, in which case you'll have lots of imitators.

I wonder what the next trend will be? Whatever it is, it'll catch on fast. (JoongAng Ilbo article on this topic.)