The actor’s desire to show different sides of himself prompted him to take on yet another complex role in “Bogota: City of the Lost.”
February is bound to be exciting for Soong Joong-ki’s Filipino fans, as the Hallyu heartthrob is finally gracing our screens this month after quite a long wait.
We’ve last seen the celebrated Korean actor in the film Hopeless in 2023, as well as in the hit K-dramas Vincenzo and Reborn Rich in 2021 and 2022. To ease the waiting game, Song Joong Ki’s latest movie, Bogota: City of the Lost, is finally getting a digital release on Feb. 4.
The crime thriller is dropping exclusively on Netflix a month after the film’s theatrical debut in South Korea on Dec. 31 last year. Netflix announced the news with an action-packed trailer wherein Joong-ki portrays the film’s lead character Guk-hui, a South Korean man who moves to Bogota, Colombia with his family after the 1997 IMF crisis. Despite hoping to find a better life in a foreign land, Guk-hui is entangled in the city’s black market and embroiled in even larger chaos.
Meticulous crafting of Guk-hui
The film has been piquing the interest of fans not only because it marks Song’s much-awaited comeback, but more so because it is yet another avenue for the actor to prove his acting prowess with complex roles in diverse genres.
Song is known to be an actor who does not hesitate to take on roles that are anything but ordinary—anti-heroes that have rough and ambitious personalities (think Vincenzo and Reborn Rich) or heroes willing to risk all to save the masses (Battleship Island and Descendants of the Sun).
In an interview with The Korea Times, he explained that the choices he’s been making in his career are mere reflections of his entire life that is “different from the norm.” He began, “I often get asked about making unexpected choices. Even becoming an actor was unexpected for me. I debuted as an actor at 26. At that time, while my college classmates were working, I hadn’t even completed my military duty. My life has always been about making choices that are different from the norm.’
It is with the same desire to show different sides of himself that encouraged the 39-year-old star to take on yet another complex role in Bogota: City of the Lost. He said that the film explores the competition and friction among Korean merchants in Colombia, which, in turn, tested his skills and brought out his tough side while filming.
“In this industry, I often hear from people that my project choices seem unusual. I’m not particularly thirsty for a specific genre, but if I’ve played a bright character in a TV drama, I try to balance it out by choosing a film that deals with a darker character that’s difficult to portray on TV for my next project,” Song continued.
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While Bogota: City of the Lost centers on the transition of his character, Guk-hui, from being an impoverished Korean immigrant into a Colombian crime lord, Song thinks that at the core of its plot is the concept of responsibility.
The actor explained, “Guk-hui is a guy with a strong desire to carve out his own life and take good care of his family. When I first read the script, I thought this film was about responsibility. If the audience feels the same way I did, I think they will empathize a lot with Guk-hui.”
Besides his adept acting skills, another noticeable feature in the film’s trailer is how Song delivered some of his lines in straight Spanish. Fans couldn’t help but gush about his new skill, leaving comments like “My man now speaking in Spanish?!” in the comments section of Netflix’s YouTube post.
Song told The Korea Times that he did, in fact, learn the language to be able to portray the character of Guk-hui as accurately as possible. “Although I can’t speak Spanish as well as now as I did when filming this movie, I learned a lot of Spanish for the shoot,” he said. “Also, I tried to incorporate as much of the local Colombian staffers’ language into the script as possible.”
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Song’s hard work for the film extended to obtaining a license to drive large trucks, as well as wearing earrings to appear as one of the locals, despite not having any piercings before. “The production team told me there would be many scenes of me driving a truck in this film, so I obtained a large-truck driving license. I took the test with a city bus, which was an interesting experience. I obtained this license with a perfect score,” he said with a laugh.
A challenging yet rewarding journey
Production of the film Bogota was no walk in the park for the cast and crew, especially because they had to do it in the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Under the supervision of director Kim Seong Je, the cast began filming in Colombia in January 2020 and finished shooting half of the needed footage in the next three months.
However, the worsening pandemic forced the team to postpone filming. It was only almost a year later, in May 2021, that they were able to complete it in Korea and Cyprus.
“We went through a lot while making this film. Due to COVID-19, something beyond human control, we had to pause filming once, and that caused a lot of internal struggle,” Song recalled. “While I’ve had projects that were scrapped during preparation, it was the first time a film was halted after nearly 50 percent of shooting was completed.”
The team’s struggles culminated with an honorable ending when the film was selected to premiere at the Busan International Film Festival last October. Song and the rest of Bogota’s team wouldn’t want it any other way.
“At the festival, we saw the completed version of this film for the first time. The actors encouraged each other. We’re not telling the audience, ‘We went through so much hardship, so please come to theater and watch it,’ That would be unprofessional,” he recounted. “However, among ourselves, watching the film reminded us of the struggles we went through together.”
Besides Song, Bogota also stars Lee Hee-jun, Kwon Hae-hyo, Park Ji-hwan, Cho Hyun-chul, and Kim Jong-soo. The film will be available for streaming on Netflix on Feb. 4, at 12 am PST or 4 pm Manila time.
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