404 Still Remain, Our 5 Minutes (2024)

A real korean gay movie...

Sometimes even the sad movies are great... In a country where homophobia was rampant, when Hong Seok-Cheon outed himself in the year before in an interview and lost his career, and where even teachers spread misinformation because of it. The homophobia is still a problem. Korea also has the highest suicide rates of western countries and especially the highest rates considering gay people.

So I was quite surprised it ended not like that. It ended in a confession which was not dicovered at that time and resulted in an 404 web error, you can say it was a bittersweet ending. This movie depicts exactly how the zeitgeist was in 2001 and why the MLs did not find together. It's done without creating unnecessary drama, it feels very realistic. It also shows internalized homophobia, which means gay people hate themselves and hate to be gay for all the wrong reasons. Social pressure in South Korea is no joke.

The movie is done very well, the production quality is not as polished as it could be but to get a gay movie financed in South Korea is more difficult than anything. While this is again a movie does not have a happy end for the MLs, it still features a happy end. It just shows how it was and how it partly still is and that is the real sad thing.

I don't want to spoil more, you really should watch this. If your sensible be warned that bullying is one of the themes too. It's not a movie where you eat snacks, it's a movie where the tissue box should be near you.

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Beautiful and sad....reminds of the earlier days of stunning Korean gay-themed movies

I loved it...its like a time capsule to the 2000s...the times of clunky looking PCs, slow internet and Windows 2000...when one had to make an effort to find things, 'places and faces' that one liked or could connect to...when finding another gay guy of your age in your locality, and in your school was almost next to impossible..and then for both of you to like each other was sheer miracle!!

I also loved how deep and almost hidden the connection between Gyeong Hwan and Jae Min is shown to be...almost like those times, cautious, unsure and still wrapped tightly...in fact we never quite get to understand for sure if they felt a romantic connection to each other or was it just deep bonding/friendship between two gay teen who wanted to cling to each other to be able to feel they are alive and there is a world beyond the hiding, performing and repressing....

This movies falls short of the heartbreaking and gory abuse, bullying and violence of Night Flight (2014) but will definitely remind you of it in ways....there is abuse, homophobia and bullying all through the movie but it stops short of escalating beyond a point for most parts.

The bond between the pair is plain beautiful and also how the two songs have been used through out the movie to convey what they were unable to convey through direct words, is also quite beautiful.

I just wish they could actually get back to each other through that globesarang.com, like a portal to the times, words and emotions that they had to withhold from each other, the songs that they never finished listening together and closure they never found with each other.

Even though it does show in ways that Hwan is happy in the present times, with what looked like a younger boyfriend, and the warmth of them visiting his mother together, etc., the movie still leaves you with a tingling sadness and pining, a sense of being haunted by a certain pocket of painful and yet beautiful emptiness, which has been rare for Korean gay themed content in the recent times

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