Influenza (2004)

Influenza was a short film/mockumentary by Bong Joon Ho. Cho’s story was told through the dispassionate ever-present CCTV lenses. No dialogue. No music. No narrator. Just tiny progressive glimpses of a man spiraling downward into crime and violence.

Cho’s descent begins in a subway restroom practicing his sales pitch for instant glue with men lined up at the urinals behind him. When luck turns against him, he makes fateful choices in order to eat. Joined by a woman as desperate as he is they feed off each other as their robbery spree escalates.

I wondered what the title Influenza meant and I’m still not sure, but as you watch this film, you’ll see people assaulting each other behind Cho. Like Kurosawa’s layered filming technique, there were layers of lawbreaking and cruelty from the forefront to the back. It was as if a violent, criminal virus was spreading. Even Cho’s one act of altruism likely aided another criminal. It was not all gloom and doom, there were humorous bits. Ahjummas do not give up their money so easily!

Bong’s use of CCTV as the only means of storytelling with a smidge of sound was an interesting one. The ever-vigilant surveillance never slowed the crime pandemic seeping over the city. Only when the nefarious couple took their brutal bender too far did civilization step in and draw a line. Once again in a Bong Joon Ho film, society failed both the victims and people driven to perpetrate their crimes, this time silently witnessed by Big Brother’s omnipresent eye.

28 July 2026

Ratings note: I was torn deciding on the ratings and gave it a slight bump for creativity.

Indelicate note: There were numerous men at urinals if that is upsetting.

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