At the CGV I-Park Mall IMAX theater in Yongsan, Seoul, an unusual phenomenon is occurring. As competition for the best seats to see Christopher Nolan's 'Odyssey' intensifies, issues of ticket scalping have emerged, prompting the theater to limit ticket purchases and enhance identity verification to combat abnormal sales.
Such fervor for a single film has returned.
And it’s a story from 3,000 years ago. The Trojan War is not our war. Ithaca is not our hometown. Odysseus is not a hero of Korea. Yet, audiences in 21st-century South Korea are captivated by the tale of an ancient Greek man wandering the seas to return home.
The success of 'Odyssey' in South Korea has reached the level of a cultural phenomenon. Amid a global box office surge, the response from Korean audiences has been particularly enthusiastic. The demand to experience the film in the IMAX format, which Nolan insists upon, has made the question of 'what movie to watch' just as important as 'where and how to watch it.'
But why?
Why are people in the AI era so enthralled by a story from 3,000 years ago? And why are South Koreans, who are at the forefront of digital civilization and the AI revolution, so captivated by Odysseus's homecoming?
To find the answer, we must step away from the theater and delve into the human heart. 'Odyssey' is, before anything else, a story of return.
Humans are ultimately beings of return. Odysseus is a hero of the Trojan War. After a decade of war, he seeks to return to his hometown of Ithaca, but the journey home takes another ten years. The sea obstructs him, gods intervene, and monsters appear. Temptations from beautiful women await, and his companions die one by one.
Yet, he continues. He is going home. He is returning to his wife Penelope and son Telemachus.
This is the oldest and most powerful force that has allowed 'Odyssey' to endure for 3,000 years. Humans are both beings that leave and beings that return. In youth, we leave home for school and work, departing our hometowns for success, and sometimes even leaving the country in search of a broader world.
However, it is strange. The farther we go, the more we think of where we can return. This becomes more pronounced as we age. Even successful individuals eventually think of their hometown, and those who have made a lot of money seek out their families.
Life may be a grand Odyssey.
There is a departure, an adventure, successes and failures. There is love and betrayal, temptation and despair, and at the end of it all lies the ancient human dream of homecoming. Thus, the story of Odysseus does not end with the ancient Greeks.
It is our story.
For Koreans, 'hometown' holds a special significance. So why does this story resonate so strongly in Korea?
We need to look into the modern history of Koreans. For a long time, Koreans have been a people who had to leave their hometowns. During the Japanese occupation, they scattered to Manchuria, Primorsky Krai, and Japan. The Korean War divided many people between the North and South. During the industrialization era, young people left rural areas for cities like Seoul, Busan, Ulsan, and Incheon. Miners and nurses went to Germany, workers went to the Middle East, and immigrants left for the United States, Canada, South America, and Australia.
Yet, in their hearts, there was always a hometown.
That is why Korean songs often feature themes of hometown and mothers. There are many songs about leaving, waiting, and returning home. During holidays, tens of millions travel. Even when highways are congested or train tickets are hard to come by, they go. They go home.
Koreans instinctively understand the heart of Odysseus, who, after ten years of war, did not give up on Ithaca despite wandering for another ten years.
Home is not just a place. It is a memory.
If Penelope did not exist, Ithaca would not exist. However, there is one condition for homecoming: there must be someone to return to. No matter how great a hero Odysseus is, if no one awaited him in Ithaca, his ten-year journey would have been a completely different story.
There was Penelope.
Her husband was away for ten years in war and then wandered the sea for another ten. In Ithaca, where the king has vanished, suitors seeking power and wealth swarm, forcing new choices upon her, believing her husband to be dead.
Yet, Penelope waits.
At this point, 'Odyssey' transforms from an adventure film into a love story. When young, reading 'Odyssey' reveals Cyclopes and Sirens. Circe and Calypso appear, along with war and adventure. As one ages and rereads it, something else emerges. Penelope becomes visible. Waiting becomes apparent. Home comes into focus.
And one begins to see how great a blessing it is to have someone to return to.
What makes a hero is not the act of leaving but the act of returning. Most heroic narratives in humanity speak of conquest. The conditions of a hero were to seize more land and defeat stronger enemies.
Odysseus is a bit different.
His ultimate destination is not a new empire. It is the small island of Ithaca. He is not going to gain more but to return to where he originally belongs. Thus, Odysseus's greatness lies not only in the destruction of Troy but in his return.
The world does not only require the courage to leave. It also needs the courage to return. There are those who succeed but cannot return to themselves, those who gain power but lose themselves, and those who earn money but lose their families.
Some succeed in going far but forget where they should return. This is the tragedy of modern humans.
Circe and Calypso, the temptations that ensnare humanity. What obstructs Odysseus's journey is not only monsters and storms. There is something more dangerous: temptation.
Circe is there, and Calypso is there. Calypso, in particular, tries to keep Odysseus on her island. In Homer's narrative, she offers Odysseus immortality and eternal youth. He could remain forever young. He could avoid death.
Yet, Odysseus chooses human life. He opts for the path back to Penelope, a mortal being, and to Ithaca, where he was born. This is one of the greatest philosophical questions that permeates 'Odyssey.'
What will you choose between living forever and living as a human? Odysseus chooses humanity.
He accepts aging and the fate of death. He values the human fate of living with loved ones and eventually dying more than the divine eternity. The question posed by Homer 3,000 years ago is revived in the AI era.
Humanity is now encountering a new Calypso: AI and advanced technology. Artificial intelligence grants humans tremendous abilities. It expands memory, retrieves knowledge, and breaks down language barriers. Life sciences aim to extend human lifespan, while neuroscience and robotics seek to enhance physical and intellectual capabilities.
So, we must ask again.
Is living long the goal of humanity? Is knowing much the completion of humanity? Is becoming stronger happiness? In an era where AI does most of the work, what should humans do?
Calypso's island is beautiful. But if one stays there forever, they cannot return to Ithaca. Technology is the same. Technology must exist for humanity. Humans must not exist for technology.
Examining Christopher Nolan's growth reveals an intriguing scene.
Nolan was born in 1970 in Westminster, London, to a British father and an American mother. He spent his childhood moving between London and Chicago. He grew up between two countries and two cultures.
Film came to young Nolan early. At the age of seven, he began making films with his father's Super 8 camera. After watching 'Star Wars,' the boy who filmed with toys would later become a director who insists on the largest screens in the global film industry.
His cinematic experiences in Chicago are particularly interesting. He was exposed to large-screen films with his father during childhood, experiencing the overwhelming impact of a massive screen early on. This childhood memory can be traced in his later embrace of IMAX and large film formats as his cinematic language.
The massive screen he admired as a boy became his cinematic world. His obsession with IMAX, which began with 'The Dark Knight,' intensified through 'Interstellar,' 'Dunkirk,' 'Tenet,' and culminated in 'Odyssey' at a new level.
Thus, the scene of audiences in Yongsan today battling for an IMAX seat reflects a peculiar cycle of time. A boy captivated by a massive film screen in Chicago is now drawing audiences to a grand screen in Seoul half a century later.
The boy raised in a Catholic boarding school has another intriguing aspect to his background. He studied at the prestigious British boarding school Haileybury during his teenage years. While historically connected to the Anglican tradition, it is noted that Nolan was influenced by the Catholic educational environment and religious culture during his upbringing.
However, caution is warranted here. There is insufficient basis to explain Nolan's cinematic world through the doctrines of a specific religion or to label him a faith-based director.
Nonetheless, the questions that repeatedly appear in his films are clear: sin and responsibility, sacrifice and salvation, time and eternity, death and existence, and human free will.
In 'Interstellar,' he questioned whether love can transcend time and space, while in 'Oppenheimer,' he asked how far humanity must take responsibility for the science and technology it creates. 'Inception' explored the boundaries between reality and dreams, and 'Dunkirk' examined humanity and community in the face of death.
And in 'Odyssey,' he asks again: Where do humans come from, and where do they return?
These questions are not solely religious. They are fundamental questions that philosophy, literature, and art have grappled with for thousands of years. However, it is possible to read that the environment in which he was close to the issues of God and humanity, sin and salvation, life and death, has become a cultural soil for his imagination.
What matters is not that Nolan preaches religion, but that he questions the origins of humanity.
Why does Nolan insist on the 'real'? In an era where digital technology can create everything, he has instead clung to real spaces, real objects, real light, and film. In 'Odyssey,' he pushed actors and cameras into real seas, ships, and vast natural environments.
This is not merely a filming preference. What he ultimately wants to show is humanity. There are waves. There is wind. There are rocks and sand. And before that vast nature stands a small human.
Human, culture, nature.
The massive IMAX screen paradoxically reveals the smallness of humanity. At the same time, it magnifies the image of that small human enduring storms and overcoming temptations to return home. Thus, it compels us to look at the human face at the cutting edge of technology. That is the power of Nolan's films.
In the smartphone era, why are theaters bustling again? The 'Odyssey' craze poses important questions for the film industry. In an age of Netflix, YouTube, short forms, and smartphones, people have long discussed the death of theaters. Yet, it is difficult to obtain tickets for the Yongsan IMAX. Scalpers have emerged.
Why?
Because it shows something that cannot be experienced at home.
In an era overflowing with content, the experience itself has become more important than the content. Watching on a smartphone and watching in front of a massive screen with hundreds of people holding their breath as they gaze at the Mediterranean waves is the same movie but a completely different experience.
The theater becomes a modern small ritual space. People gather in a dark space. The lights go out. And they listen together to a story from 3,000 years ago. It may not be fundamentally different from how ancient Greeks gathered to hear the bard tell the story of Odysseus.
Technology has changed. Humanity has not changed much.
For those in media, it is necessary to view 'Odyssey' from another perspective.
What is content that survives for 3,000 years?
It is not breaking news. It is not a trend. It is not an algorithm.
It is a story that touches on humanity's fundamental questions.
Who am I? Where did I come from? What do I love? What do I fight for? And in the end, where will I return? These questions do not disappear even as search engines change. They do not disappear even as AI advances.
That is why Homer has passed away, but 'Odyssey' lives on.
What are Korean audiences seeing? So far, 8.5 million viewers are not all watching the same movie.
Some go to see Nolan. Some go to see Matt Damon, and some go to experience the overwhelming IMAX screen. Some go to meet the Trojan Horse, Cyclopes, Sirens, Circe, Calypso.
Young audiences will see adventure. Middle-aged viewers will see love and loss. Parents will look at Telemachus, and those who have been married for a long time will see Penelope differently.
And as one ages, other things become visible. Homecoming. Humans watch the same movie while seeing their own lives.
Good art does not provide a single answer. It offers a mirror. That is why 'Odyssey' has survived for 3,000 years. Now, interest is focused on whether 'Odyssey' will surpass ten million viewers in Korea.
However, more intriguing than the number ten million is why Koreans in 2026 chose this film. We are in the midst of an AI revolution. The world is changing too quickly. Professions are shaken, industries are restructured, and AI is entering areas of knowledge and creativity that humans have long considered their own.
At that moment, Koreans are encountering a human from 3,000 years ago. It is a strange paradox. Through cutting-edge IMAX technology, they are watching the oldest human story.
And they ask again.
What is humanity? Life is ultimately an Odyssey.
Nearly 3,000 years have passed since Homer sang 'Odyssey.' Empires have fallen. Religions and ideologies have changed. The industrial revolution occurred, and humans went to the moon. The internet was born, and now AI converses with humans.
Yet, some things have not changed. People love. They wait. They leave. They get lost. They are tempted. They fail. They rise again. And they return.
Thus, 'Odyssey' is not a classic. It is the present.
Odysseus does not remain merely a hero who died 3,000 years ago. He exists within us. Today, someone leaves home for work. Someone departs for a foreign country for business, and someone lives apart from their family in search of success. Someone fights for life in a hospital, and someone starts again from a place of failure.
Everyone is on a journey.
We all have Cyclopes. We all have Sirens and Calypso's island. And we all have Ithaca to return to. It may be a hometown. It may be family or a loved one. It may even be the lost self.
Delving deeper, we encounter the ancient spiritual question of where humans come from and ultimately where they return.
Therefore, what matters in life is not just how far one has gone, but where one is returning to.
This is a more important question than success. It is a longer-lasting question than money. It is a weightier question than power.
Homer asked it 3,000 years ago. Christopher Nolan asks it again in 2026. And now, as people compete to secure a ticket at the IMAX theater in Yongsan, they are encountering that question. Even on the day the ten millionth Korean audience enters the theater, the question will remain the same.
Where is your Ithaca?
Humans leave. And someday, they will return. Along the way, they love, fail, fight, forgive, and age. That long and arduous journey is life.
That is humanity. And that is the Odyssey of us all.
* This article has been translated by AI.
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