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Jajangmyeon is a popular dish among Koreans. We can have it whenever we want because it is relatively cheap and common, while each serving is large in quantity. Moreover, it carries special sentiments. Just like how Koreans usually eat seaweed soup on birthdays, they eat jajangmyeon every time they move. There is also a day called ‘Black Day’, when single people comfort their loneliness by eating jajangmyeon. Also after graduation, we usually go to a Chinese restaurant to eat it with the family. It surely is cheap and common, but special at the same time. These black noodles came from China more than a century ago, but it has become a soul dish for the Koreans today.

 

Signature films that feature jajangmyeon are The Great Chef and The Opening, which were both released in the spring of 1999, one after the other with just a week in between. They both talk about the ‘taste’ of jajangmyeon. The Great Chef is a journey to finding the pure taste of the noodles, free of artificial flavors. On the other hand, The Opening is a horror film about the secret of the addictive taste of jajangmyeon, ‘human flesh’, which has been dealt with in some Chinese films.

 

While those two films were made from the point of view of those who make the dish, most other films have stories about those who eat it. First of all, the boss of Bulsapa (SONG Kang-ho) and his minions in No. 3 (1997) eat so many bowls of jajangmyeon that they become sick of it. Suffering from the hardships of life, they cannot afford anything else and are forced to live only on jajangmyeon. They even bet over fried dumplings which are often serviced for free to regular customers. Fried dumplings remind us of OH Dae-su in Old Boy (2003). He ate nothing but fried dumplings in a small cell for 15 years.

 

There are a number of other ‘Jajangmyeon eaters’ in films such as the men in the interrogation room of Memories of Murder (2003). The detectives and a suspect eat jajangmyeon while watching television together. In this scene, no other food could substitute jajangmyeon to create the specific atmosphere. In My Love, My Bride (1990) directed by LEE Myung-se, the angry husband stares at his wife enjoying jajanmyeon and imagines stuffing her face down in the bowl of jajangmyeon. This scene appears again in the remake film made in 2014, starring SHIN Min-a and JO Jung-suk. Besides these, the heroine of Spellbound gobbles up jajangmyeon to cope with her fears, the manager in Radio Star (2006) mixes jajangmyeon with the sauce to show his affection for the singer he takes care of, and the teenage master of love in Hot Young Bloods (2013) uses jajangmyeon as an item to lure a girl.

 

‘Metal case’ is used to describe the Chinese food delivery men, who is often used as an impressive prop in films. Almost Che (2012) is a comedy where a group of delivery men abruptly and unexpectedly become the guardians of the pre-democracy movement in the politically turbulent era. Going back in time, AHN Sung-ki played a similar role in Good Windy Day (1980). Later on, characters holding metal cases often showed up in many films as to jokingly represent the emotions of the low class.

 

If there were a genre for ‘jajangmyeon films’, LEE Hae-jun would have to be the leader in the field. From his debut film Like A Virgin (2006) to My Dictator (2014), his films always contain jajangmyeon scenes. But his second film, Castaway on the Moon (2006), might be the most moving jajangmyeon film he has made. A man is deserted on an island but luckily finds a powder packaging of a jajang ramen sauce and decides to make jajangmyeon on his own. First, he picks through bird feces, with hopes that there is some sort of seed in his findings. After he plants the seeds he found, stalks of corn grow. He then grinds the corn kernels to make noodles and finally completes his own dish. As he succeeds in making jajangmyeon, his trauma is washed out. It is a moment that jajangmyeon is reborn as soul food.