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One of the key components behind the success of Korean content and the wider cultural industry more generally has been the Korean elements that they capture – and indeed the ways in which directors are able to tackle them.

There has been some discussion in the K-pop industry as it globalizes whether to take the K out of K-pop that could have ramifications for the wider sector – does it move towards English-language and global content or does it retain its Korean sensibility?  Perhaps it can do both but looking at Korean films what certainly remains appealing are the quintessentially Korean settings.

These include the sub-basements in the work of Bong Joon Ho, the PC and Karaoke rooms in numerous Korean films and the Korean schools in K-horror films. Then there is the home and family that is central to many Korean narratives while food and restaurants are also a key feature in films. This week we dive into this trend beginning with the now famous locations in Bong Joon Ho’s films before turning to family, PC and Karaoke rooms and Korean Schools. We’ll explore food in next week’s Ko-Pick.  

Bong Joon Ho & Sub-basements  

The Oscar-winning auteur is no stranger to confined spaces having shot many of his films in such locations or in studios erected to mimic them: the basement underneath the apartment in Barking Dogs Never Bite (2000), the tunnels in Memories of Murder (2003), the sewers in The Host (2006), the train in Snowpiercer (2013) and the sub-basement or banjiha in Parasite (2019).

Parasite’s historic Palme d’Or win at the Cannes Film Festival in 2019 and then its journey on the awards race sparked a great deal of attention on the setting of the sub-basement. As so often with Bong’s features it was riddled with meaning and layers signifying social inequality; the desperate climb up the social ladder only to fall crashing down as depicted later in the film with the poor family forced to return home echoing the house and stairs in Kim Ki-Young’s The Housemaid (1960).

It’s a very Korean setting reflecting how difficult it is to find affordable accommodation in Korea, especially in Seoul and the wider metropolitan area where half of Korea’s population resides. Apartment and real estate prices are a recurring headline in the daily news bulletins as it continues to generate much discussion among families and friends as many, especially young people struggle to get onto the housing ladder.

The subject of apartments that are ubiquitous in Korea is also central to Bong’s feature debut Barking Dogs Never Bite, which follows an aspiring academic (Lee Sung-jae) who grows increasingly frustrated with the incessant sounds of barking dogs. In a scene in a basement, a security guard (Byun Hee-bong) recounts the story of Boiler Kim who he said was killed and buried in the basement after a fight breaks out when he raises concerns over shoddy construction. Built in 1988 the year of the Seoul Olympics it reveals how quickly these apartments were built amidst rapid change in Korean society. These complexes would go on to reflect Korea’s burgeoning middle class.

Social inequality in a neoliberal society is not unique to Korea and is evident throughout much of the world, which partly explains why Bong’s films resonate with global audiences. His accessibility as a filmmaker remains key even if the locations in his work feel very local and Bong as an exceptionally gifted storyteller is able to bring these settings to life in unexpected ways.

Family and Melodrama

Related to the location of sub-basements and apartments is the setting of family. The concept of family is universal and it’s something audiences from around the globe can relate with.

Families in Korean films come in different forms; be it the nuclear family in films like No Other Choice (2025) or Parasite, while there are more unusual examples including The Quiet Family (1998), The Host (2006) creating interesting dynamics. Families in some of Korea’s most successful films feature single parents (A Taxi Driver (2017), Miracle in Cell No. 7 (2013)) or parents that are separated (Train to Busan (2016)) though these films usually focus on single fathers. Bong Joon Ho’s Mother (2009) is a notable exception.

 The family has been explored in more comical ways in titles like Scandal Makers (2008) where a single mother (Park Bo-young) approaches a popular radio DJ (Cha Tae-hyun) claiming to be his daughter. She herself has a son.

Families in Korean films can also span different generations – both young and old – as films seek to reach a large demographic, especially during the holiday and peak seasons. This was true with features like the hit comedy Miss Granny (2014) and the action-comedy Exit (2019) that includes a scene at a 70^th birthday party with the whole family present before it’s disrupted when a disgruntled man releases a dangerous toxin in Seoul sparking panic.

At the heart of family in Korean cinema is melodrama that goes back to the earliest Korean films during the Japanese colonial period. Korean cinema is not alone when it comes to melodrama, Hollywood films too feature melodramatic narratives. In Korean films, however, it has manifested differently, and it does feel more pronounced that also helps pull viewers into the story making them accessible even when much might feel unfamiliar.

PC Rooms & Karaoke

Many visitors to Korea will be well-aware of PC rooms or PC bangs and Karaoke rooms (noraebangs). The former is popular with gamers but it’s also a place where anyone can access the internet, print out a document. Karaoke rooms on the other hand are a common destination after work dinners or a Hoesik. Many international guests at festivals like Busan and Bucheon have been to Karaoke at some point following a night out drinking.  

PC Bangs date back to the late 1980s but became increasingly popular in the 1990s and 2000s as Korea’s broadband networks were constructed at breakneck speed that also correlates with the growth of the gaming sector in Korea. Gaming is now a central driver in the local cultural exports sector.   The growth of PC bangs saw the decline in comic book rooms or Manhwa bangs that emerged in the 1950s, which have appeared in some Korean films including Happy End (2000).

PC Bangs in Korean films are often a location where characters are looking for information online such as the case in Oldboy (2003), or indeed printing something out like a forgery in Parasite. Such characters might not have the means to do so at home or they might be on the run as the lead played by Ji Chang-wook is in Fabricated City (2017). In this film he is also an avid gamer, which is where the film begins before he is lured into a scam and framed for a murder.

Karaoke sessions are a familiar scene in Korean films as characters sing their hearts out and release their stress and pain, which is something many audiences can identify with.   Such scenes are found in Jealousy is my Middle Name (2002) and You are My Sunshine (2005). It served as a central location in Kim Sang-chan’s wacky Karaoke Crazies (2017) about four oddball characters who attempt to bring a struggling karaoke bar back to life, but little do they know a serial killer is in the small rural town. Its combination of Korean genre-bending thrills, eccentric characters along with its alluring setting enabled it to travel on the festival circuit stopping at festivals including Toronto and Edinburgh.  

Korean Schools – K-horror

One prominent location in Korean films is schools as films target the younger generation. These features encompass different genres and themes; sometimes independent dramas like Yoon Ga-eun’s The World of Love (2025) but one genre that is synonymous with high school settings is Korean horror.

This is largely through the Whispering Corridors series that marked the beginning of contemporary Korean horror, which utilized interior locations and not just schools but hospitals (Epitaph (2007)), houses (A Tale of Two Sisters (2003)), apartments (Apt. (2006)), workplaces (Office (2015)) and other settings. Many of these titles have been released overseas.

The legacy of Whispering Corridors is still felt to this day illustrated by the Netflix horror series All of Us are Dead (2022) through its setting in a school, and social critique of the issues students face in and out of the classroom. The series was immensely popular on the platform and a second season is coming out, possibly next year.

The Whispering Corridors films span two decades with the first one released in 1998 directed by Park Ki-hyung about a student who returns from the dead to inflict revenge on those who harmed her. It deals with the pressures students are forced to deal with in Korea’s competitive education system.

Each film of the series is different along with the characters and director, but the setting remains the same – the most recent Whispering Corridors 6: The Humming (2020) helmed by Lee Mi-young was released in 2021 after premiering at the Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival (BIFAN) as the opening film in 2020.

While Whispering Corridors 6: The Humming ultimately failed to reach the critical heights set by many of the earlier films such as Memento Mori (1999), the high school setting along with the social themes remains a common setting in both Korean films and dramas.

Written by Jason Bechervaise

Edited by kofic