Hallyu superstar Song Joong-ki headlines Bogota: City of the Lost (now on Netflix), an offbeat crime-drama from filmmaker Kim Seong-je about Koreans carving out retail space in Colombia by smuggling underwear into the country and selling the snot out of it. No, really, underwear. Specifically, lingerie. And, eventually, down parkas, which nobody thinks will sell in a tropical climate until they realize that people live at higher, chillier altitudes in the mountains. And so we have a saga about a criminal empire that starts with some strategic bribery and gets worse from there of course, as ethical slippery slopes allow Song’s opportunist character to climb the capitalist ladder. Ain’t that always the way?
The Gist: 1997. The Asian financial crisis has driven Kook-hee (Song Joong-ki) and his family out of South Korea and right into the teeth of a police state in Bogota, Colombia. They wide-eye armed soldiers with German shepherds as they roam the airport, and Kook-hee’s father (Kim Jong-soo) reminds the family that this is just a “tollgate” to the ultimate destination, the United States. Does anyone really believe him? I dunno. Does anyone believe that they’ve left a shitty situation and landed in an even shittier one? Possibly. But Kook-hee’s father has an old friend wh- and hey, well, dammit, they’ve been robbed. Already. An armed thief on a motorcycle snatched the satchel with the family’s life savings in it as they sat in a taxi, and he wasn’t particularly nice about it. Welcome to Colombia.
But Kook-hee, who seemed rather meek to this point, didn’t just sit there with mouth agape. No, in a fit of rage, he tried to chase the thieving motorcyclist. A fruitless endeavor, but it showed spunk, foreshadowing perhaps for what’s about to come. But for now, we’re back to Kook-hee’s father’s old friend. They served in Vietnam together, and now “Sgt.” Park Jang-soo (Kwon Hae-hyo) sits atop a small but lucrative collection of Bogota retail shops run by Korean immigrants. Sgt. Park is “big in Bogota,” as they say – he built this little empire by smuggling cheap Korean lingerie into Colombia and capitalizing big. Kook-hee’s family presumably would’ve opened a shop or invested in Sgt. Park’s enterprise, but with their cash gone, our guy has to sweat his ass off unloading trucks while his mother sweats her ass off at a sewing machine and his father sweats his ass off wondering how he, a one-time factory owner, got to this point.
Life is endurable as time passes to 2000, and Kook-hee proves himself trustworthy enough to take on the more risky and dangerous endeavor of driving truckloads of lacey underthings through checkpoints where armed guards will hopefully take bribes. Kook-hee saves a couple pairs of panties in his own underwear after one checkpoint stop goes awry, further proving his mettle to Sgt. Park. Next thing you know, Kook-hee and Park trustee Soo-yeong (Lee Hee-joon) piece together a trusted method that allows them to pilot entire caravans of illicit duck-down parkas into the Korean market, which go over gangbusters, and before long, they’re rolling in cash and throwing rooftop pool parties in Cartagena. But there’s no contentment in this business – local “legitimate businessmen,” led by Alejandro (Fernando Alberto Lara Zabala), aren’t thrilled with losing market share, and there’s some amusing jockeying around to see who can offer the biggest bribes to corrupt officials who love to be paid to look the other way. And when there’s a lot of money involved with a sketchy house-of-cards business model, internal problems lead to desperate maneuvers. Or, in Kook-hee’s situation, he begins flexing his ambition in a manner that’s equal parts timely and desperate.
What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: City of the Lost has a similar not-quite-serious-but-serious-enough tone and building-a-criminal-empire plot that brings to mind Korean film The Drug King (which also stars Lee Hee-joon).
Performance Worth Watching: Song plays his character mostly buttoned-up, passive until the opportune moment arrives. Which leaves Lee free to lean into his suave mustache and inject some charisma into a movie that otherwise runs a little light on it.
Memorable Dialogue: A bloodied Kook-hee lies stunned on the sidewalk, and pauses for comedic effect before uttering, “F—ing Colombia.”
Sex and Skin: None.
Our Take: What? Another movie about Korean lingerie smugglers in Colombia? I kid – Kim’s film takes Goodfellas arcs and sensibilities and applies them to a uniquely dynamic setting and situation, a premise that bodes well in the abstract. But in execution, the story runs through a series of familiar story beats as it depicts the increasingly treacherous ups and downs of Kook-hee’s enterprise across roughly a dozen years. City of the Lost inadvertently asserts that clashes and power struggles amongst and between extralegal characters, and the authorities, feel pretty much the same no matter where and when it happens. There are crosses and double-crosses, and shaky alliances and betrayals – all the rigamarole you’d expect from the genre.
One senses Kim leaning away from genre cliches by undercutting some of the drama with dark comedy, and maintaining an oddball tone that sort of implies a satirical angle. But the film finds itself trapped halfway between winking at us and taking itself seriously, and Kook-hee remains a mystery to us, never becoming the robust protagonist the movie needs. His motivations are cloudy, and there’s hints of comedy in the way he seizes power, which toes the line between calculated and accidental. It’s easier to appreciate the keenly twisty plot, but the film’s lack of character depth leaves us feeling less emotionally engaged, more observers to a series of ridiculous and tragic shenanigans. Our lack of investment makes us feel like we’re stuck in the City of the Lost, too.
Our Call: Kim offers keen visual sensibilities and a potentially rich premise, but Bogota: City of the Lost doesn’t quite fulfill its potential. SKIP IT.
John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
