Sunday Night Movies
Some of the people around here have come up with a great little tradition of seeing a new movie on Sunday nights at the theater in Shinsaegae (department store/mall in Suji). I went for the first time this past Sunday and we ended up seeing The Kingdom - a movie with Jamie Foxx, Jennifer Garner, and Chris Cooper that came out in the states a few months ago, but had just recently made its way over to Korea. They don't seem to have many English speaking movies here, but the Korean movies aren't that bad. I recently watched one about a Korean serial killer true life story that was very well done. And more often than not the movies that are in English here, are generally months after they came out at home - case in point - Black Dahlia was playing here last week and that came out a year ago at home.
It was your average movie going experience - except better. When you buy your tickets (for 7 or 8,000W) you pick your seats, almost as if you were buying tickets to a concert or a sporting event. They even come out looking like event type tickets too:
(on top is a ticket I had randomly in my wallet from when I saw Harry Potter in New York, and the bottom is from Shinsaegae)
So a big group of westerners walk up to the counter and just kind of point to what seats they want. They print out a ticket with your seat number and you can be on your way. The concession stands seem to be exactly the same - big sizes, semi-expensive prices, sodas and candies and nachos.
The theater itself was pretty cool... big stadium style chairs that are absurdly comfortable with big arm rests and the screens are as big as the ones I used to watch in Times Square - and excellent quality surround sound too. I'm sure there are some smaller theaters and some run down ones too, but the one I saw was a pleasant experience. I opted out of going to see something tonight, but I'll be back.
It was your average movie going experience - except better. When you buy your tickets (for 7 or 8,000W) you pick your seats, almost as if you were buying tickets to a concert or a sporting event. They even come out looking like event type tickets too:
(on top is a ticket I had randomly in my wallet from when I saw Harry Potter in New York, and the bottom is from Shinsaegae)
So a big group of westerners walk up to the counter and just kind of point to what seats they want. They print out a ticket with your seat number and you can be on your way. The concession stands seem to be exactly the same - big sizes, semi-expensive prices, sodas and candies and nachos.
The theater itself was pretty cool... big stadium style chairs that are absurdly comfortable with big arm rests and the screens are as big as the ones I used to watch in Times Square - and excellent quality surround sound too. I'm sure there are some smaller theaters and some run down ones too, but the one I saw was a pleasant experience. I opted out of going to see something tonight, but I'll be back.