I Am Korean Trying To Be Korean

Holic lived a long time in Coron in the Philippines, and I lived a long time in Bangkok. The years spent there as outsiders rather than tourists were what we had to talk about whenever we met, and that shared sense held us together. During the pandemic we both came into Korea, and then both countries shut down and we could not go back.

The day we met again we laughed until we cried. Both of us had ended up having to readjust to our own country, gone unfamiliar in the years we were away. Handled seriously it turns into a complaint. So we decided to get the laugh in first. Holic plays the lead.

At an unstaffed cafe kiosk, at a till that only takes cards, in front of water that never gets cut off, the subtitles do not use Seoul as the standard. In Coron this is five hundred won. In Coron it is cash only. In Coron the water gets cut. The side that is supposed to adapt becomes the measure instead, and that inverted conversion is both the joke of the film and the state the lead is in.

There is a shot that places the lead in the middle of the street and runs the cars and the people past him at speed. Without a line of dialogue this single scene says everything about the gap in adjustment speeds. It is a comedy sketch borrowing the form of a documentary, so the funny scenes and the scenes where time passes wear the same face.

While he was in Korea, Holic had a child. The one who kept saying he would go back ended up staying, and I, who had been watching from beside him, wheel a suitcase into the departure gate. The swap of positions is the film's last joke.

The final caption on black closes that swap with a single line of internet slang.