Bogota Netflix Movie Review: The young Guk-hee arrives in Colombia with his family in the late 1990s, quickly finding himself entangled in the city's criminal underworld and beginning his rise to power. On Netflix.
In 1997, South Korea was also a victim of the financial crisis that hit many Asian countries. For this very reason, many decided to emigrate abroad, like the family of the then nineteen-year-old Guk-hee, whose dream of moving to the United States stopped in what was supposed to be only an intermediate stop, namely Colombia.
In Bogota, the new arrivals are forced to survive day by day and always under the protective wing of Sergeant Park, a former comrade of the father and a figure of power within the local social and criminal dynamics. After earning the trust of the boss, Guk-hee begins to gain more and more space in the logic of smuggling and his rise to power will see him make painful choices, which could radically change the fate of the Korean community in the city.
Bogota: between dreams and reality
A story of migrants who find themselves entangled in a criminal world when society leaves them no other alternatives. And so the protagonist finds himself trying to reach that sixth world, a cycle of existence in Buddhism that is equivalent to the highest stage, here transformed by the rich and powerful into a state of bliss that can only be achieved through violence and illegality.
A criminal escalation full of potential ideas, which however ends up getting lost under the weight of its own ambitions and in the excessive fragmentation of the story, with the years passing too quickly - through superimposed writings to advance the setting chronologically - and that constant voice-over by Guk-hee that leaves nothing to the imagination, covering even the unclear or a priori skipped passages, but without at the same time allowing us to enter into communion with the character.
All Quiet Under the Bogota Sun
A gangster movie like many others, with just a handful of action sequences to liven up the spectacular side, without however fully capturing the charm of Bogota: City of The Lost. A flaw partially attributable to the interruption of filming when 40% of the shooting was done due to the restrictions imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic, with the film then completed in Korea: the final result was obviously incomplete, which must have also influenced the narrative itself.
But in addition to the locations, there are also noteworthy figures missing, starting with the protagonist himself played by Song Joong-ki who, almost forty years old, finds himself in the shoes of a character who is little more than a teenager, despite the partial justification of growing older during the story. An uninspired casting, where the one who shines the most is a thoroughbred like Kwon Hae-hyo, in the role of mentor and boss.
Bogota: A ruthless fight for survival
From the initial robbery, with a gun-wielding motorcyclist stealing the bag containing the savings of a lifetime, it is clear that life for Guk-hee and his loved ones will not be easy at all. It is a shame that the family dynamics are ignored for most of the viewing only to then come in handy on occasion for forced twists, a choice that castrates and not a little the emotional impact of the story and makes the whole thing profoundly unaffectionate.
The path of personal growth in the underworld, moreover as a "stranger in a foreign land", is thus sacrificed to a didactic evolution, without any emotional jolts that could lead the audience to identify with and/or take sides, in a criminal game that becomes increasingly murky, where no one can trust anyone. Where the cucaracha (cockroach in Spanish) is the only animal capable of surviving the changes of the ages, for thousands of years, as a metaphor for how one must transform into a reprehensible being to survive in a world of unknowns.
Conclusions
Arriving in Colombia at the end of the nineties, fleeing with his family from the economic crisis that hit Korea, the young Guk-hee gradually makes his way into the city's criminal underworld. A climb to power that will not spare him and his loved ones, but which will see him in turn as a ruthless protagonist.
A Korean-produced thriller filmed for the most part in South America, Bogota is a gangster movie that is far too superficial in giving life to characters and events, which follow one another without any real jolts for the hundred-odd minutes of viewing. A couple of action scenes do little to impress the right spectacular verve, with the genre tension disappearing as soon as the schematic nature of the assumption and the relationships between the various contenders is understood.