agmtw logo
search
Yellow Door: '90s Lo-fi Film Club (2023)

Yellow Door: '90s Lo-fi Film Club (2023)

PG-13

netflix

A love letter to film appreciation as seen through an 90’s Seoul film club

7.7

Movie

South Korea
Korean
Documentary
2023
LEE HYUK-RAE
Ahn Nae-sang, Bong Joon-ho, Choi Jong-tae
84 min

TLDR

As a former film club member, this was really nostalgic.

What it's about

After the pro-democracy protests of the 1980s, the 1990s finds Seoul in a more carefree, explorative period where students form clubs for their own interests. One such club is Yellow Door, a film club that included director Bong Joon-ho while he was studying sociology.

The take

Given a budget from Netflix to make a documentary on Korean film, some would have chosen instead to make one for big Korean filmmaking personalities like Academy Award winner Bong Joon-ho, who is featured here. However, director Lee Hyuk-rae instead creates Yellow Door, a love letter to the ‘90s film club that inspired a generation. The warm way each member tries to remember the club made decades ago, and the handy, almost cheeky, animations makes it feel like we’re there in the club with them, just listening to friends reminisce about the way they obsessed about film, even if it wasn’t the major they were studying in. It’s so nostalgic and sentimental, and in shifting its focus, it celebrates the lovely experience of finding a community of like-minded people that’s just obsessed with film as you are.

What stands out

The main draw to this film, especially for movie lovers, is obviously Bong Joon-ho. It’s automatically interesting to know how a famous filmmaker began their career, and Yellow Door acknowledges this in its first scene. The documentary doesn’t start with the members talking about the club. It starts, instead, with them trying to recall the first short film Bong Joon-ho ever made, a stop-motion animated short named Looking for Paradise. But this scene isn’t just to draw the viewer’s attention. It’s a brilliant choice because in doing so, it captures the way a film club would talk about a film, the same way Yellow Door did in the 1990s. It’s an engaging approach to start out the documentary, and it makes it feel like you’re a club member too.

Comments

Add a comment

Your name

Your comment

UP NEXT 

UP NEXT 

UP NEXT 

Once Were Warriors (1994)

A Maori family survives in an alienating Auckland in this raw, tragic drama

8.0

Silenced (2011)

A brutal and harrowing exposé of the schoolwide abuse case that sparked outrage in Korea

9.0

The Night Comes for Us (2018)

A Triad enforcer punches out a bloody escape in this spectacular, violent crime thriller

7.0

His Three Daughters (2024)

Three sisters deal with life and death in this moving family portrait

8.2

Zatoichi: Darkness Is His Ally (1989)

The blind swordsman makes his last stand in this action-packed, nostalgic conclusion

7.0

Emilia Pérez (2024)

Zoe Saldaña and Selena Gomez return to their roots in this multinational crime musical drama

7.5

Forgotten Love (2023)

The stunning third take of the classic Polish pre-war melodrama

7.7

Hail Satan? (2019)

Forget everything you think you know about the Satanic Temple

8.0

Short Sharp Shock (1998)

Three friends take to the streets of Hamburg in this multicultural crime drama

7.5

Leave the World Behind (2023)

Shyamalan meets Black Mirror in this hugely entertaining, visually inventive apocalyptic thriller with a killer ending

8.2

Curated by humans, not algorithms.

agmtw logo

© 2024 agoodmovietowatch, all rights reserved.