Castaway on the Moon, directed by Lee Hae-joon, is a film about two Kims who are marginalized in modern society and escape from their respective isolated worlds to discover each other and rediscover the meaning of life. Through the symbol of drifting, the film delicately depicts the isolation and alienation that modern people experience and the struggle to recover from it. The Kims’ struggle to escape their isolation emphasizes the recovery of human agency in modern society and the discovery of hope through bonding with others.
Castaway on the Moon, directed by Lee Hae-joon, tells the story of two Kims who are marginalized from modern society and drifting in their own worlds, but find hope in life and each other. The story revolves around the two main characters, Mr. Kim and Ms. Kim, their respective worlds and their encounters, and the unique and comedic setting and its social implications resonate. Although the film was first released in 2009, its themes of reclusive loneliness and the struggles of young adults with nowhere to turn are still relevant today. These themes still resonate in today’s society and reflect the isolation and anxiety of modern life.
Mr. Kim (Kim Sung-geun), a former office worker who is so deeply in debt that he attempts to commit suicide by jumping into the Han River, is swept away by the river and lands on Bamsom Island. Through his cell phone, he sends a distress call to a passing boat, but due to the location, no one thinks he is really adrift. He tries to hang himself again, but decides that he can die anytime, so he starts researching ways to survive on the island, and eventually adapts to it, making a life for himself and continuing to live there away from the prying eyes of the outside world. Through Kim’s internal conflicts and changes in this scene, the director expresses how modern people live in deep solitude.
Ms. Kim is a reclusive loner who hasn’t left her room for years due to the wounds she suffered in school, stealing other people’s photos and creating a homepage pretending to be her own. She refuses to meet people, and has kept to her own ritual of photographing the moon twice a year, on civil defense drill days, when the streets are empty of people. But when he sees a message, “HELP,” left by someone on Bamsan Island, where no one is supposed to be, he soon discovers the man he calls “the alien,” Kim. After months of watching him, until “HELP” turns into “HELLO,” Kim decides to take a leap of faith and goes out at night, throwing a glass jar with the same “HELLO” message into Bamsan Island. From then on, they communicate with each other through the letters on the sand and the glass bottle. Later, when Mr. Kim is nearing the end of the farming season for jjajangmyeon, which he defines as his hope after finding the spaghetti soup, she asks a delivery driver to send him Chinese jjajangmyeon, but he refuses, saying that jjajangmyeon is his hope. Eventually, Mr. Kim succeeds in getting his wish, but he is discovered, his hideout is destroyed, and he is forced out into society. After losing everything again, Mr. Kim goes to commit suicide by jumping from Building 63, but thanks to her civil defense training, she finds a way to reach him in time.
By delicately depicting the subtle psychological changes of each character, the movie helps the audience to understand their inner lives more deeply. In particular, the moment when Mr. Kim decides to give up suicide and fight for his survival is moving in itself. It’s not just a matter of survival, but a deep reflection on human existence. This scene vividly conveys how important it is to find meaning and purpose in modern life, and how difficult it can be.
There are many metaphors through dialog, direction, and subject matter, but most of them are relatively clear. For example, drifting in this film refers to being lost in a crowded urban space, unable to connect with others, and being self-sufficient in your own world. While Mr. Kim’s drifting has given him a restorative time to rediscover his values, Ms. Kim, who has been drifting for a long time, has not been able to resolve her desire to reach out to people and has been living under a fake identity on the internet to protect herself from being hurt. What they have in common is that their drifting was initially almost voluntary, but then they refused to get out of it by their own will, whether through inertia or not. When Kim monologues about her reason for photographing the moon, “I don’t feel lonely because there is no one on the moon,” and when she looks at him through the device she was using to photograph the moon and calls him an “alien,” it is clear that they chose to drift because they didn’t want to be hurt by people, and that they didn’t want anyone else to see them and feel negative emotions such as loneliness.
However, it is revealed at the end of the movie that the space of drifting was an illusion. Mr. Kim’s hiding place on Bamsum Island was a space that was bound to be discovered eventually, and Ms. Kim’s false mini-homepage could not escape controversy, and they were doomed to suffer repeatedly in human society. Mr. Kim is despairing and wants to choose death again. However, their approach to life changes when Ms. Kim, who had previously remained anonymous, runs to Mr. Kim. At one point in the movie, Mr. Kim tells the scarecrow about Ms. Kim and says, “It’s better not to know who she is,” which is the same avoidance that Ms. Kim has always practiced through her website rather than a newfound, wiser way of living. In the end, the movie suggests that the illusion of our own separate spaces is just an illusion, that drifting is just a temporary state, and that we can and should live with our suffering, but that we can somehow survive when we ask each other into each other’s spaces, that is, when we try to look into each other’s minds and discover each other.
Another thing to note in this work is how each character attempts to recover from their drifting state. In the case of Mr. Kim, he chooses to be self-reliant in his drifting, building his own little world with an independent way of life. This is in line with the idea of self-reliance in the modern world, or trying to keep your own space. Kim, on the other hand, chooses to hide herself deeper and deeper in the process of drifting, cutting off her connections with others. However, both of these choices end in failure, and the movie emphasizes once again how important it is for us to connect with others as social beings.
So, how should we interpret Mr. Kim’s ‘cheesy scene’? When Mr. Kim finds an unopened jar of spaghetti soup in the trash, he is overcome with a powerful desire to eat jajangmyeon. When his attempts to make noodles with the ingredients he has fail, he tries to just scoop up the soup, but his desire to eat the intact noodles wins out, and he farms for months, even refusing to take delivery from a Chinese restaurant. While appetite was clearly Kim’s driving force in the beginning, it seems to have morphed into something else as he later refuses delivery jjajangmyeon. It’s something Kim calls “hope in life,” and it’s a small thing, but it’s symbolic nonetheless. In the end, Kim has discovered an attitude toward life that finds meaning in the process rather than in goals and outcomes. There is a scene early on where he complains about being labeled as a “bad credit” person and exclaims that he is not bad. This reveals his rebellion against the way he is judged and stigmatized by social standards. He then attempts to reorganize his life through the process of making jjajangmyeon himself. Jajangmyeon is more than just food here. It is the process by which he creates his own hope against the world and symbolizes his will to be recognized for his existence.
This “process” Kim chooses is no longer just about survival for him, but a journey of self-discovery and recovery. In this process, he realizes the meaning of hope, which is gained through the experience of carving out his own path. In this context, Jjajangmyeon symbolizes the self-affirmation and sense of accomplishment that humans gain from setting goals and working toward them in the modern world. Furthermore, Kim’s refusal to eat jajangmyeon is not simply a matter of vanity or pride, but a will to cherish his own values that he has discovered along the way.
However, the movie shows that even after Mr. Kim succeeds in making Jajangmyeon, he cannot completely escape from society. He is eventually discovered by people, and his struggle with isolation continues in a new form. At this point, the movie soberly reveals how fragile our dreams of freedom and independence are, and how difficult it is to sustain them within the structure of society. Mr. Kim finds hope in the isolated space of Bamsum, but that hope is once again threatened by the larger structure of society.
The transformation of Ms. Kim is also noteworthy. Through her indirect communication with Mr. Kim, she slowly begins to break out of her own world. While Mr. Kim is farming on Bam Island, she is also forced to step out of her own closed space and try to connect with other people. This process is very scary for her, but it also opens her up to new possibilities. The jjajangmyeon she delivers to Mr. Kim is not just about delivering food, but about her strong desire to connect with the outside world.
In the end, Castaway on the Moon is more than just a story of drifting; it’s about the isolation and alienation that modern people experience and the struggle to recover from it. The movie shows how easily we can be judged by social standards and lose our identity in the process. But at the same time, it also offers hope that it is possible to overcome this and rediscover one’s value. The story of Mr. Kim and Ms. Kim ultimately makes a strong argument that we can grow and recover through each other, and that this is one of the reasons we should live.
Finally, the movie raises questions about the nature of human existence. Can we find our true selves in society or in isolation from it? The film doesn’t answer this question definitively, but what it does emphasize is that we must constantly strive to find the answer. Drifting is painful in itself, but it gives us the opportunity to face our true selves and find new meaning in life. This is one of the biggest messages of the movie.
More than just a story of drifting, Castaway on the Moon resonates deeply with audiences as it addresses the isolation and alienation of modern society and the struggle to recover from it. Although each person’s situation and circumstances are different, the movie makes a strong argument that we can grow and recover from each other, and that this is one of the reasons we should live. The journey of the Kims in the film conveys the belief that we can build a better life by recognizing, understanding, and growing with each other.
