Suppose
they threw a cultural camp and a 1980s teen comedy broke out instead. Evidently,
it happened quite regularly. Not so surprisingly, the sponsoring Korean
government was not too amused—hence the program for children of the Korean
diaspora was eventually discontinued. However, the camp will have one big horny,
heartfelt last hurrah in Benson Lee’s Seoul
Searching (trailer
here),
which screens during the 2015 Sundance Film Festival.
Prepare
to get your eighties on. They are the children of Korean immigrants in America,
Germany, England, and Mexico, who have assimilated more completely than their
parents. In many cases, they do not even speak Korean. They have been packed
off to reconnect with their Korean heritage, but they are really just there to
party. Grace Park, the New Jersey pastor’s daughter, has modeled her style on
Madonna. Sid Park has adopted Sid Vicious as his idol. These two might be
perfect for each other, but it will take them a while to overcome a really
rough start.
S.
Park will bunk with Sergio, the aspiring Latin lover, and the ever so German
Klaus Lee. The latter is decidedly reserved, but he will come out of his shell
a little when he helps American adoptee Kris Schultz track down her biological
mother. Meanwhile, military academy cadet Mike Lee wages an open war with three
kids who want to be the next Run DMC. Yet, the stern Mr. Kim only seems to want
to bust Sid Park’s chops.
Searching is based on
writer-director Lee’s fondly remembered 1980s summer at Korea’s cultural summer
camp—and you can really feel the nostalgia. Honestly, if all the Clash, Go-Gos,
Erasure, and Violent Femmes tunes do not bring the decade flooding back for
you, you just weren’t around back then. In terms of tone, it is four parts John
Hughes and one part American Pie, but
the underlying themes of generational culture clashes and the need for roots
gives it greater bittersweet substance.
The
entire cast is ridiculously charismatic, even when selling the grossest
make-out session ever and plenty of manipulative melodrama involving Schultz and
her birth-mother. Frankly, it seems like Justin Chon and Jessika Van are way
due to breakout as major stars (he was terrific in the short film Jin, but might be better known for the Twilight franchise, while she made a
strong impression in indie fare like Bang, Bang). They really have great chemistry in their punked out, material girl Moonlighting-esque sequences. However,
Korean actress Byul Kang sort of steals the third act out from under everyone
as the taekwondo tomboy Sue-jin.
