Heavily influenced by the 1980s teen comedies of US
director John Hughes, Seoul Searching follows a group
of foreign-born Korean teenagers as they visit a summer
camp near Seoul that aims to reconnect them with their
lost cultural heritage, with varying degrees of success.
As you’d expect from a teen comedy, the film has a
catchy soundtrack and is full of memorable characters
and outlandish comedy situations.

Benson Lee’s film is as concerned with matters of love,
sex, underage drinking and partying as any of the other
films associated with the genre, but it is the treatment
of identity which is most pertinent. All teen comedies
are about coming to terms with who you are as you
approach adulthood, what Seoul Searching does is amplify this well-worn theme to encompass

an acceptance, as a second generation immigrant,
of a lost cultural heritage and national identity.