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.
"It’s to the doc’s credit that “Yellow Door” isn’t just about Bong Joon Ho, because there are plenty of other interesting personalities in the mix too... Their joy in participating here is palpable, making you feel like you’re a part of the gang."
— David Opie
"Lee Hyuk-rae’s ode to a bygone era in South Korean film culture is a sweet tribute to his generation’s college days in the early ‘90s."
— Monica Castillo
This intimate documentary explores a bygone era of cinematic passion and the emergence of young film enthusiasts in South Korea, including Bong Joon Ho.
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 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.
As a former film club member, this was really nostalgic.
