Perhaps thanks to its geographic proximity to Hollywood, Los Angeles' Koreatown is being featured more and more as a film set in the U.S. movie market, generating quite a bit of excitement. In "Collateral", the US$24.40 million blockbuster featuring Tom Cruise that was 1st in the box office last weekend following its opening on Friday, the climactic duel is really a sight to see. A scene unfolds in which Cruise's character, a cold-blooded contract killer named Vincent, eradicates a whole gang in a nightclub in LA's Chapman Plaza. The nightclub in question is "Cafe Bliss", located on Koreatown's 6th Street and Alexandria.
The place is shown on screen as the "Club Fever" techno club, however, and it was closed for about 10 days for shooting the film. The film is competing with "Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle", featuring Korean-American actor John Cho in his first ever Hollywood starring role, which may be indirectly helping Koreatown obtain its place in U.S. films.
As the social and economic influence of Korean immigrants in the United States expands, Korean businesses are naturally taking their place in Hollywood. One of the last scenes of Jim Carry's film "Man on the Moon" takes place inside another Koreatown café, while in Tim Robbins' film "Human Nature", a scene takes place inside Wilshire's BCD Tofu House, although it's decorated as a Western-style restaurant.
When one loans their restaurant, cafe or home to big names in Hollywood, he or she usually receives US$5,000~$8,000 an hour in user fees, and they say it's rather interesting to see their establishments look better than they really are.
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