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The Golden Holiday
Language: Korean
Additional Languages: Filipino, English
Alternate Title: Gukjesusa (literally International Investigation)
Year of Release: 2020
Director & Screenwriter: Kim Bong-han
Producer: Yeonghwa-sa Jangchun
Cast: Kwak Do-won, Kim Dae-myung, Kim Hee-won, Kim Sang-ho, Nico Gomez, Fredie Abao, Mon Confiado, Shin Dong-mi, Joshua Eliason, Lee Han-seo, Jo Jae-yoon, Marnie Lapus, Hwang Moo-young, Cindy Miranda, Neil Ryan Sese, Shin Seung-hwan, Christian Villete, Fredie Abao, Loren Burgos, Kim Chang-ok, Yu Jinoo, Lee Chanyu, Kang Chaemin, Lee Kyuyeong, Kim Chaejun, Lee Sojin, Lee Yuri, Park Changhee, Rafael Robles, Candy Arcangel, Taos Obach, Cherish Maningat, Marnie Lapuz
Hong Byeong-soo’s house will be foreclosed by the bank if he’s unable to raise funds soon. He explains, to no avail, that his childhood friend, Kim Yongbae, absconded with the extra income he was hoping to raise and fled to the Philippines. His wife and daughter petition him to bring them to Pinas for his tenth wedding anniversary, since they’d never taken a foreign trip in their lives. He can barely afford the expenses on his salary as a rural detective in Daecheon City, so his colleagues chip in and raise some money for him to spend. While searching for Yongbae, he gets framed for murder by corrupt police officers and solicits the help of his Korean tourist guide, Mancheol. He then finds out that Yongbae’s in prison and confronts his friend there. Yongbae offers him a share of the legendary Yamashita gold, a collection of treasures hoarded by the eponymous World War II Japanese general who was executed for war crimes, with the location of the trove remaining a mystery that he (Yongbae) managed to place.
The Golden Holiday is all that any national cinema can reasonably expect from the Korean pop-culture industry at the peak of its prowess. A number of Pinas-shot K-productions have come out during the millennium, ranging from the furthest “indie” extreme (made by a protégé of the late Kim Ki-duk and better left to oblivion) to several gangster stories that raise issues of identity and difference; Koreans also hold the global record of having the most number of overseas kabayans acknowledged in varying degrees in their film material.[1] But like in the case of Hong Kong, specifically Alan Chui Chung-San and Yuen Bun’s Mabangis na Lungsod (Ferocious City, 1995), it took a tongue-in-cheek approach to devise the most effective entry, in the face of the expected hemming and hawing on the part of less-informed global appreciators. The use of Yamashita’s gold as MacGuffin in resolving the differences between childhood friends who grow up to find themselves on opposite sides of the law, turns out to have a larger significance in suggesting a critique of the various forays by shady foreign and local forces on the Philippine treasury. The Korean characters also keep reminding one another of their presence in a foreign country, in which corporate and government (including police) services are much less responsive to less-privileged individuals, even if they come from developed territories: a sharply observed series of Korea-set events, where the lead character’s friends raise an amount that would be able to cover the cost of a vacation in the Philippines, lands a real-world cognitive blow when we realize that it would barely last the family a day or two of sightseeing in Seoul. A final populist gesture pops up when a streetsmart Manila-based Korean recruits a pair of assistants, whom he accurately terms tambays (a Tagalized clipping of “standbys”)—layabouts with expertise in violence, or lumpenproles in short. The total takeaway is something that now mostly gone Pinas experts could have imparted: that pop-culture pleasure need not preclude political significance, a lesson that practitioners and evaluators of all stripes need to constantly relearn.
Note
[1] One potential for added insight was debunked, to my relief: the production company’s name resembles that of the Chinese Changchun studio (which it actually credited in Wikipedia), active since the 1940s, whose record is consistent in covering foreign-set material, with generally a pro-China stance. I’d feared that since The Golden Holiday was created and released during the presidency of Rodrigo Roa Duterte, known for favoring China in defiance of US policy, but also at the expense of Philippine territorial and economic interests, then its producer may have been attempting to replicate the Koreans’ success in deploying soft power. As it turns out, the actual production company of TGH “doesn’t have an official English name online (yet) … but has no connection to the Chinese film company” (from a Facebook Messenger note sent December 8, 2025, by Son Boemshik, a former student researcher of mine). The company’s Korean name, used in the credit listing here, is owned by the director and has only three other productions as of this time. (I am grateful to Mr. Son as well as to Yu Taeyun, a former graduate advisee, for uncovering these vital details, and to Jerrick Josue David for providing me with access to the film.)
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