The movie ‘Bogota: Land of Last Chance’ (directed by Kim Sung-je, Bogota) that took a full 5 years from casting to overseas location shooting and post-production has finally been unveiled.

As the title suggests, the movie is actually set in Bogota, Colombia. Filming was conducted on location in 2020, but filming was suspended and resumed repeatedly due to COVID-19.

Now, it seems there is no longer a long wait and it will be released in theaters on the last day of the year.

Ahead of the release, the lead actors Song Joong-ki, Lee Hee-joon, Kwon Hae-hyo, Park Ji-hwan, and Jo Hyun-chul held a press distribution preview at COEX Megabox in Samseong-dong, Seoul on the afternoon of the 19th and solved all of their long-awaited homework.

The film is a crime film that depicts the story of Kook-hee (Song Joong-ki), who heads to Bogota with his family after the 1997 IMF (International Monetary Fund) foreign exchange crisis, and gets entangled with the local Korean community president Park Byeong-jang (Kwon Hae-hyo) and the powerful figure Soo-young (Lee Hee-joon).

Director Kim Sung-je, who was in charge of directing, introduced the film by saying, “I wanted to tell the story of a person who has lost everything and goes to a faraway place to live,” and “I thought I was going to go out into the wider world, but I tried to portray characters who are trapped in a small community and experience desire, conflict, friendship, and betrayal in an extreme way.”

Song Joong-ki caught attention by colorfully expressing Kook-hee’s narrative from his teens to his twenties and thirties in the film.

He said, “He is a character who gradually grows from a young man isolated in an unfamiliar place,” and “He is the most independent and determined character I’ve ever experienced.” He expressed it as “overflowing with a burning desire.”

Song Joong-ki emphasized the details by specifically expressing when Gook-hee arrived in Bogota, when she fully adapted and lived there, and when she took on the role of the president of the Korean community in the latter half.

He said, “I like to challenge things I haven’t tried before. I like working in a new environment and being with them, so I was very curious about it.” He added, “I wanted to portray the character of a pure child who does anything to survive and changes.”



Reporter Lee Jeong-yeon annjoy@donga.com