Baek Byung-yeul is a journalist at The Korea Times focused on cultural content, including films and cultural events in South Korea. You can contact him at baekby@koreatimes.co.kr to share your insights.
'APT.' in Korean pop culture reflects obsession with real estate, wealth
Actors Lee Soo-jeong, center, and Lee Do-jin, right, are seen in a scene from the upcoming film, “The Berefts,” which tells the story of a father and daughter who pretend to be a family with a young man in order to win an apartment lottery. Courtesy of Cine Sopa
By Baek Byung-yeul
Koreans have a strong cultural obsession with real estate, particularly the ownership of apartments.
This concentration of household assets in real estate is partly due to Korea's relatively small land mass and the high population density in urban areas. The issue is clearly reflected in the data, as real estate accounted for 78.6 percent of average household assets as of March 2023, significantly higher than in other countries, according to Statistics Korea's April report.
Korea is a society where the belief that "one must own a home" is deeply ingrained in the collective psyche, a notion that extends into pop culture. Apartments, which make up 52 percent of total residences in Korea, are often portrayed in media as symbols of social status and personal stability.
Interestingly, the global success of BLACKPINK's Rosé's single "APT." featuring Bruno Mars has brought even more attention to apartments as a dominant theme in Korean pop culture. Meanwhile, films, webtoons, and dramas are increasingly highlighting this familiar yet powerful symbol.
Recent films such as "Lucky, Apartment," "4bun 44cho" and the upcoming film "The Berefts" use apartments as primary settings where various characters unfold their stories and conflicts arise.
In "The Berefts," to be released on Nov. 20, two families form a fake household, attempting to secure an apartment through a fake marriage in pursuit of a stable life.
In this film, Mun-ho (Im Hu-seong) and his daughter Go-eun (Lee Soo-jeong), who has an intellectual disability, are trapped in a cycle of motel living, constantly struggling for survival.
Through a broker, Mun-ho arranges a fake marriage between his daughter and Do-kyung (Lee Do-jin), a man who lives in a semi-basement flat and works as a delivery driver by day and a designated driver by night. Mun-ho and Do-kyung exploit the fact that having a family member with disabilities gives them higher priority in apartment applications, hoping to escape their dreary lives.
Actor Sohn Su-hyun, right, in a scene from “Lucky, Apartment” / Courtesy of Indiestory
"Lucky, Apartment," released last month, follows a same-sex couple dealing with an unpleasant odor in their debt-financed apartment. The film portrays escalating tensions between Sun-woo (Sohn Su-hyun) and her partner Hee-suh (Park Ga-young) as they investigate the smell's source, while facing conflicts with neighbors worried about property values declining.
"4bun 44cho" — which surprisingly uses the direct Korean translation as its official English title with "bun" meaning minutes and "cho" meaning seconds in Korean — demonstrates how apartments can be utilized in horror films. With a 44-minute runtime, it explores the closed nature and anonymity of apartment living, offering a new interpretation of this living space.
Beyond films, other forms of pop culture addressing apartment ownership and real estate are also gaining attention.
Cartoonist Yugi's thriller webtoon, "Deadly for the Property-Less" (direct translation), tackles the inevitable theme of apartment ownership and human desire in Korean society, where property values can rise by tens of millions of won in a short period of time.
A poster for cartoonist Yugi’s online comics “Deadly for the Property-Less" / Captured from Naver Webtoon
In this online comic, Ji-ae lives in an expensive Seoul apartment. While known at her company as an apartment owner, she actually lives in her high school friend Ye-ji's home. When Ye-ji accidentally dies, Ji-ae, realizing she can't stay if her friend's death is discovered, hides the body in a refrigerator and conceals the death.
Moon Kwan-kyu, a professor of art culture and image at Pusan National University, notes that apartments, as Korea's representative type of residence, have always been an intriguing subject matter.
"Since the 1960s, there have been many movies about apartments, which are the primary living space in Korea. However, the apartment, once the home of the middle class, is now the dividing line between the rich and the poor, and there is no better place to showcase class than the apartment," said the professor, who also serves as a jury member for the Network for the Promotion of Asian Cinema (NETPAC) Award at the Busan International Film Festival.
"Apartment ownership has become a symbol of wealth, and the type of apartment one lives in has become a defining feature of Korean life. This makes it an ideal canvas for exploring themes of wealth and inequality, which is why pop culture featuring apartments continues to captivate audiences."