Stateless Things (2011)★ 5.6/10

Not Rated · KR · 115 min · September 8, 2011

• Drama

Directed by: Kim Kyung-mook

Written by: Kim Kyung-mook

Jun (Paul Lee) is an illegal immigrant from North Korea, working in a gas station under an exploitative and abusive boss. Hyeon (Yeom Hyunjoon) is the kept boy of a married businessman, who has set him up in a swanky apartment near the government's headquarters in Yeouido. Both young men are in trouble. Jun's lack of an official identity and papers limits him to dead-end jobs (the gas station, handing out flyers, and eventually male prostitution) and leaves him always in fear of arrest and deportation. Hyeon, who is supposed to be available whenever his sugar daddy "needs" him, stifles in his up-market "prison". These two finally find each other through an Internet site, with disastrous results. The sudden convergence of their opposite lives gives Kim the cues he needs for a series of reflections on the implications of "statelessness".