Well, carrying on with London's 3rd Korean Film Festival, I went along to see the closing film (Windstruck) last Friday with friends Robbierto and The Sash. Arriving 35 minutes before the screening we thought we'd left ample time but didn't reckon on the popularity of the film (or perhaps it was because it was Friday plus the film was free), as the queue stretched all the way into Leicester Square and round the corner to The Empire. Which in short, was very long.
Dutifully we queued, as more and more people joined behind us and eventually the line of people snaking out in front of us slowly crept forwards as the organisers finally began to hand out free tickets at the head of our shivering procession. Having waited for half an hour in the queue and getting within sight of the entrance, the cinema must have been reaching capacity as organisers began running past us down the queue to count heads.
We started to fret that we'd waited freezing in the queue only to get to the final few people and not get in. The guy at the front informed us all that they were down to the last handful of tickets as we edged closer, realising that it was going to be a close call. When we finally reached the front there were only two tickets left. Typical. I told the other two to go for it as I'd already seen one of the festival films earlier that day, but then a Korean guy amongst the organisers stepped forward and seeing we were together said he was holding a single ticket which he offered me, and so thanking him in korean (kamsa hamnida!) I went in with the others.
Having taken our seats upstairs in the circle (the last time I'd been up there at the Prince Charles was years ago), we'd just settled down to wait for the film when the guy who'd given me my ticket appeared onstage in front of the screen and introduced the film and then himself as its director (Kwak Jae-Young)!!
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