I may be abusing my pulpit here since I am posting rather than just adding a comment, so if this disappears I know the Marmot thinks so.
I find it amusing the recent “controversy” about the Han River bridge on the US TV series Lost. A while ago I got sucked into the series, and I too found a number of inaccuracies involved in its depictions of Korea. Most of the show is shot in Hawaii, so local sites are slightly altered, in the aforementioned bridge case apparently it’s a mall. Or as one website cataloguing shooting locations tells it:
Kila Kalikimaka Mall - (The pedestrian mall across the Chinatown Cultural Plaza on the Ewa/West side of the stream at River St.)
From there you can also find out that it’s this bridge on Google maps.
The site is an interesting look at the places they substituted for places around Seoul. For the uninitiated, look at this page of the above site and look for the words “Sun & Jin” next to the episode name (the names of the Korean castaways).
I find most of the “outrage” rather humorous. After living in LA for 15 years, I get used to seeing various LA locations turned into cities all across the globe with various success (e.g. it “snowing” in “Maine” when there is a palm tree in the distance, or there is no way there are THAT many Japanese cars in Detroit).
Anyway, my favorite “inaccuracy” in the show revolves around the offices. Sun’s father is supposedly the Owner/Chairman of a Chaebol, inadvertently perhaps in the same vein of Hanwha Chairman Kim Seung-youn given the news these days. The fictional Chairman’s office lacks much of the accoutrements of a Korean Chairman’s office, notably the gaudy orange overstuffed Pleather chairs and the glass/green felt desk top. The desk also lacks the HUGE nameplate for the front of the desk to remind people of the name and rank. The same goes for a Korean doctor’s office and the office of a Korean hotel manager. And in those places we could perhaps add small paper cups of instant coffee (the chairman would have his secretary get instant coffee in china cups).
There are other fun things if you look close: Koreans drinking black coffee, Restaurants who give takeout in plastic containers (not to mention the first impulse is not to get it delivered), the fashions and hairstyles worn by a bulk of the “Korean” populace, Seoul always has a blue sky and is lushly green in and around the city, and the use of obviously Japanese styled buildings to portray Seoul!
16 Comments
I find most of the “outrage” rather humorous. After living in LA for 15 years, I get used to seeing various LA locations turned into cities all across the globe with various success (e.g. it “snowing” in “Maine” when there is a palm tree in the distance, or there is no way there are THAT many Japanese cars in Detroit).
My hometown, Brisbane, gets used (albeit less than LA) in filming of all manner, including Korean MVs, which are no doubt trying to pass it off as Miguk.
What ‘outrage’ are you guys talking about, other than that one Chosun Ilbo article that was linked to in this blog?
Yeah, don’t think the “outrage” ever really went beyond the pissy 백수 netizens.
Aaronm, the best was the Canadian Rockies in the background of ‘Rumble in the Bronx’.
Why do I have a feeling that the average Kim in the street doesn’t really give a crap about some stupid bridge in some American TV show and that this “outrage” is a prop so that an expat with way too much time on his hands can have something smug to talk about on a slow news day….
Hey, those were the Coast Mountains! “Rumble in the Bronx” was really “Rumble in Vancouver”: by about halfway through the movie, there wasn’t even the effort to keep up even the pretense that it was New York City. It ended up being a paean to Vancouver, in my mind.
I’ll write what I’ve written elsewhere. Yeah, Hollywood gets it wrong all the time. And my own hometown, Vancouver, has stood in (not always very convincingly) for any number of other places. The X Files (before they moved to LA), Sixth Day (which I saw in Korea), and Rumble in the Bronx are probably the ones where Vancouver figures the most conspicuously as itself and not whatever other place it’s supposed to be, but there have been many more productions. I don’t care passionately about it, and I especially wouldn’t have cared if the bridge hadn’t had a sign on it—but why in heck did they go to the trouble of determining that the name of the main bridge in Seoul is the Hangang Daegyo, and spending money on making up a sign and sticking it on the bridge, thereby making the inaccuracy so glaring—especially when the Korean(-American) writers or actors could have corrected whoever came up with it!? (Unless it was the Korean writer who had the idea… ;).) The last time they showed that stream in a Jin & Sun story (about a year ago), I don’t recall a sign, so at least it could plausibly be taken for a very wide Cheonggyecheon (even though Cheonggyecheon would have been covered up in the time period when the backstory was set).
At any rate, I just amuses me and I don’t sleep over it. I suspect it was probably just a couple of commenters who made a big stink out of it, so let’s not get our knickers in a knot over the small number of Naver commenters who, um, got their knickers in a knot over it.
Anyhow, I think M*A*S*H safely takes the cake for most egregious examples of non-Korean stuff (people, behaviour, architecture, etc.) in what was supposed to be a Korean setting.
At least the southern Californian hills they used looked plausibly like the Korean countryside.
I still thoroughly enjoy Lost. The news came out today that it’s going to run for 3 more seasons before wrapping up. Argh—3 more years to wait to find out the final resolution of everything!?
Sewing, I can’t believe you forgot about the Pheonix Foundation building in McGyver (in reality the Qube, which was still the Westcoast Energy Building back then). I always look for a shot of that building if I suspect a TV show or a movie was shot in Vancouver.
The Westcoast Transmission Building, which used to be such a distinctive landmark on the Vancouver skyline before it got eclipsed by all those other tall buildings? I missed that—the funny thing is, I never watched MacGyver or 21 Jump Street (also shot here) when they were on.
“Why do I have a feeling that the average Kim in the street doesn’t really give a crap about some stupid bridge in some American TV show and that this “outrage” is a prop so that an expat with way too much time on his hands can have something smug to talk about on a slow news day….”
Beautifully put, lol.
The average Korean doesn’t care much about “Rain” either, but enough below-average ones do to make a difference.
*^^*
Netizen Kim: “Why do I have a feeling that the average Kim in the street doesn’t really give a crap about some stupid bridge in some American TV show and that this “outrage” is a prop so that an expat with way too much time on his hands can have something smug to talk about on a slow news day….”
Boy, thanks for adding just a little more negativity to the world.
That bridge is right across the park in Chinatown, Honolulu where I score my crack and crystal meth.
The hilarious thing is no one would have given a shit if the brilliant Korean culture consultants the show employs didn’t put up that little Mickey Mouse sign saying “Han Gang Dae Gyo” on it. They should’ve thrown a little rock in the stream and put a little “Dokdo” sign on it.
In reality, the place is hardly a “mall.” It is in a pretty diliapidated section of downtown Honolulu, on the skirts of Chinatown. And right across this “mall” is a park that is patronized by the homeless and the crystal meth addicts. After sundown, the only people you can find walking around this area are generally druggies and transvestite hookers.
Lovely.
Next time I am in Honolulu I know where to party!