|Kave Magazine=Choi Jae-hyuk Reporter In front of the airplane boarding gate, instead of a large suitcase, there are a few worn backpacks and a camera bag. Four friends who call themselves 'surplus' - Ho-jae (Lee Ho-jae), Ha-bi (Ha Seung-yeop), Hyun-hak (Lee Hyun-hak), and Hwi (Kim Hwi) - board a flight to Europe. All they have left in their bank account is 800,000 won and a camcorder in hand. Their plan is simple yet reckless. "We'll shoot a promotional video for the hostel, so give us room and board and a little money." They plan to tour Europe for a year, repeating this barter, and finally find a musician to complete a music video. And to complete the entire process as a documentary to be screened in theatres. Like playing 'Eternal Sunshine' in reverse, they turn on the camera first to create memories. The film 'The Hitchhiking of the Surplus People' begins at the ignition point of that plan.
The four are classmates who hung out together in film school. At school, they were treated as 'useless kids' and always struggled between tuition and living expenses. Even with part-time filming jobs, they couldn't cover half the tuition, so they made a different choice. "Should we earn tuition and return to school, or should we just try something completely ridiculous?" And they eventually choose the latter. They decide to physically practice the recklessness of their twenties, which might be their first and last chance. It's like Jesse and Celine getting off the train in 'Before Sunrise', abandoning calculated rationality and grasping the hand of intuition.
However, from the moment they land in Paris, the plan begins to crack. There are hardly any hostels that readily accept the offer of "We'll shoot a promotional video, so let us stay." Emails go unanswered, and they are often turned away when they visit in person. The camera mercilessly captures the faces of such frustration. The four of them staring at their account balance on a laptop just before the deadline, jokingly comforting themselves on a street bench, "Isn't it still fun?", and their expressions becoming noticeably quieter at night. Instead of the usual "Wow, it's Paris!" exclamations seen in travelogues, this film gazes long at the damp early morning air of Paris and the backs of young people wandering the hostel corridors. Just as 'Lost in Translation' reinterpreted Tokyo as a stage of loneliness, this film relocates Paris as a frontline of survival rather than romance.
Young Days, Suffering Because It's Youth?
As their bodies and minds become exhausted, the initial plan becomes increasingly powerless. The four friends eventually descend to southern Italy and summon another reckless technique called 'hitchhiking'. They raise their thumbs on the road and squeeze into a car that barely stops. Inside the car, unfamiliar languages, gestures, and clumsy English intertwine. Repeating the introduction "We are filmmakers from Korea" dozens of times, they gradually shed the face of a traveller and adopt the expression of 'workers on the road', like Frances McDormand in 'Nomadland'. Even if they manage to solve the sleeping issue, hunger cannot be disguised, leading to days of saving ingredients or even fasting. There are sections where the camera is frozen for nearly a month due to cold and fatigue. This gap remains as 'silence' on the screen.
Then finally, the first deal is made. A hostel accepts their proposal. The four of them are ecstatic. They explore the rooms, film the lobby, and collect interviews with guests, building the 'promotional video' they had imagined. The screen at this time is unusually vibrant. It's the moment when the skills and equipment they prepared finally ignite. As this video begins to spread by word of mouth, they start receiving contacts from hostels across Europe. They still have no money, but at least they have a place to sleep. France, Italy, Turkey, and the UK - new cities, hostels, and faces continue to be archived by the camera. The film captures longer moments of cooking together in the kitchen, playing guitar and singing in the lobby, and editing behind the check-in counter, rather than postcard-perfect landscapes. Just as 'Chef' (2014) rediscovered family through a food truck, they reconstruct a community through labour.
However, 'The Hitchhiking of the Surplus People' does not end as a mere boast of a penniless journey because it does not conceal the cracks and conflicts within this journey. Scenes of conflict over whether to continue filming or return when the money runs out, moments of exploding dissatisfaction over each other's shares, and conversations questioning "What are we doing now?" in the face of reality not going as expected are archived by the camera. Sometimes the perspective of the person filming intentionally avoids fights, and sometimes it mercilessly captures someone's tears up close. Like the needle of a seismograph shaking, this is the core driving force of the documentary. If 'Birdman' captured the chaos of a film set in one take, this film reconstructs the chaos of travel with fragmented shots.
As they reach the end of their journey, the four friends recall their initial final goal. 'Music video'. The promise to meet the British musician Arco and complete a music video for them. Only a few days remain. The equipment is worn out, and their stamina is depleted. But they still grab the camera and roam the streets of London. The film leads to the conclusion with the result of this final sprint, but it would be better for the audience to directly check how the music video is completed and how this film encounters the world after returning to Korea. The important thing is that this 365-day journey is not just "We had a great time" but a growth story showing "how we endured and how far we collided."
If You Want to See the Reality of Korean Youth
'The Hitchhiking of the Surplus People' may appear to be a cheerful road documentary on the surface, but it is actually a raw archive of the portrait of the Korean youth generation in the early 2010s. During the time when the term '880,000 won generation' was popular after the IMF, the self-naming of 'surplus' was not just a self-deprecating joke but a kind of survival strategy. Just as the protagonist of 'Slumdog Millionaire' was not ashamed of being from the slums but used it as a weapon, this film engraves that word in its title. "We are surplus." Youth that has not yet properly anchored in school or the labour market, fluid youth. But precisely because of that, they are the ones who can fly the farthest and most recklessly. This paradox is visualised through the expressions and bodies of the four characters.
Formally, this work is a model case of a DIY documentary. The director, Ho-jae (Lee Ho-jae), traverses in front of and behind the camera, explaining the situation and sometimes boldly exposing the bare faces of the four, including himself. The screen often vibrates, and scenes with mismatched exposure or out-of-focus shots are adopted as they are. It is far from the so-called 'high-quality cinematography'. Instead, it is saturated with a sense of presence. Scenes of hitchhiking on the roadside in the rain, editing in a cramped hostel room, and the lens fogging up in the early morning are more convincingly penetrating due to their rough texture. It's closer to the attitude of "We film as much as we can now" rather than the declaration of "We film as it is". This is a strategy of turning limitations into aesthetics, just as 'The Blair Witch Project' or 'Paranormal Activity' reinvented horror with found footage.
A noteworthy point is the camera's coordinates. In a typical travel documentary, the camera targets the outside world. It captures landscapes, people, and tourist attractions. However, in 'The Hitchhiking of the Surplus People', the camera often reverses direction towards the four. It does film the locals who helped with hitchhiking and the hostel owners, but the most frequent appearances are ultimately their own faces. Faces showing irritation from exhaustion, moments of laughing at ridiculous jokes and suddenly becoming serious, scenes where the question "Can we really go all the way?" lingers in their eyes. This is not just a travel record but also a process of dissecting themselves through the camera. Just as Watson reconstructed his experiences through a blog in 'Sherlock', they also reassemble their identity through the camera. So at some point, 'us filming' and 'us as subjects' collide. The tension between those who want to stop filming and those who want to keep it running is clearly etched on the screen.
In terms of content, it precariously traverses between praising and criticising youth. On one hand, this film declares "Don't be afraid, go out, collide." Even if the plan isn't perfect, even if there's not enough money, the message that a path will be paved if you execute it is repeated. The laughter and optimism of the four friends in the documentary genuinely resonate with the viewer. But at the same time, the film does not conceal how precarious this journey was. The scenes of sitting blankly because of hunger, the moments when emotions are condensed and explode, prove that romanticising a penniless journey is not right. The criticism that "Wasn't it possible because it was you?" - in other words, the recklessness was possible because of a certain level of safety net, talent, and stamina - can be sufficiently raised. Just as Cheryl Strayed in 'Wild' could walk the Pacific Crest Trail thanks to the leisure of being a middle-class white, the film does not directly answer this criticism. Instead, it throws that question into the conversations and expressions of the four friends.
Considering the social context, the meaning of this work becomes clearer. The choice of mid-20s film school graduates, crushed by tuition and the future, to drop out and 'burn' a year was a shock and a sense of liberation for many viewers at the time. They freely lean in a direction that no one has authorised. The attitude of owning the failure entirely as their own, even if they fail. This is the point that distinguishes 'The Hitchhiking of the Surplus People' from a mere travel vlog. The journey in this film ultimately concludes as a film itself. In other words, they didn't just travel, but practised the labour of "filmmaking" by transplanting it to another continent. Just as 'Boyhood' recorded growth over 12 years, this film records self-discovery over a year. When this documentary, filmed on the roads of Europe, is actually screened in theatres and encounters the audience, that recklessness acquires another meaning.
A Youth Film from the Time When 'Surplus' Was in Vogue
For those surviving their twenties today, especially those often surrounded by the anxiety of "I feel like I'm the only one falling behind", this work can be a strange comfort. It doesn't mean the choice of the four friends is the right answer. Rather, it is a process of proving with their bodies that there is no right answer. Even if things don't go as planned, even if they collide and regret in the middle, it visualises the possibility that they can still try once. Watching it, you can sense the feeling of "Ah, I'm not the only one vibrating like this."
I would also recommend it to aspiring creators who want to create content but are hesitant to start. This film proves that even without enormous equipment and capital, without meticulous storyboards and a huge team, if you have a story you want to tell, you can start filming. Of course, the stamina and persistence of the four friends, and a certain level of skill, are necessary. But the fact that those who started without being perfect eventually completed 'a piece' is a bigger stimulus than expected. The fact that attitude came first, not perfection, and that attitude eventually connected to completion is the core of this film. It can be positioned in the lineage of punk creations armed with DIY spirit, like 'Tank Girl' or 'Clerks'.
For those who love travel but are a bit tired of Instagram-style 'curated travel', 'The Hitchhiking of the Surplus People' will be an interesting experience. Instead of carefully selected cafes, exhibitions, and viewpoints, there are roads where cars don't stop, hostels with stalled reservations, and rain that disrupts schedules. Yet the cities, roads, and people of Europe still beautifully penetrate. Not just as a postcard, but as a backdrop for people who collide, collapse, and rebuild.
After watching this film, you might find yourself pondering this question: "Where and how do I want to invest my twenties, my present?" For those who want to receive that question head-on at least once, 'The Hitchhiking of the Surplus People' will be quite an honest mirror. Ultimately, what this film proves is simple. There is no such thing as surplus. There are only variables that have not yet discovered their equation.
