An immigrant who settled in New York in 1979, Kim was immediately captivated by the city’s cultural openness, which led him to open a video rental shop.
Kim revealed that uniqueness was his guiding principle in selecting which films graced his store shelves.
“From the beginning, when I allocated half of the dry cleaning shop to the film section, I established a policy that prohibited the space from being filled with ordinary Hollywood videos. Instead, I sought out special and unique movies,” he says.
“Back then, major distributors in the United States were not so interested in independent films, cult classics and films, for example, from the Soviet Union, China and Eastern European countries.
“In New York, the world’s cultural capital, even if all those great films gained accolades in international film festivals, people couldn’t watch them,” he says, explaining why he started to visit cultural centres in various countries, rent their videos, copy them and fill his “new acquisitions” section.
His stores were frequently raided by the police over piracy allegations, yet Kim’s steadfast belief and passion for film kept the store operating.
He did not distribute pirated films for profit; instead, his priority was to make films available to the public that would otherwise languish in warehouses due to a lack of commercial interest from distributors.
In fact, many directors, students, and professors from film schools supported Kim.
“The university professors were thrilled to find that Kim’s Video had films that were not even available in their university libraries.
“They started sending their students to my store. We had so many great films from Slovakia, Yugoslavia, Hungary, Poland and the Soviet Union and it became a paradise for film students and movie lovers,” he says.
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As he became enamoured with New York’s vibrant diversity, the shop evolved into a hub for indie cinema and underground music.
“In hindsight, I doubt I could have achieved as much success in other cities as I did in New York. There were many young filmmakers who could only afford to shoot 10- to 20-minute films due to budget constraints. I would then compile these films into a collection,” says Kim.
“At other times, I would offer my space to indie musicians and turn it into an impromptu concert hall, recording the live concerts with the on-site noise and selling CDs of the performances at the store.”
All of his businesses, however, faced with the advent of the digital age, eventually closed their doors in 2014.
I had imagined they would be receiving love and proper care. It was a truly heart-wrenching sight.
As each store closed, Kim donated most of his tapes to universities in the US and Korea. But he had a different idea for Mondo Kim’s, a branch at St. Mark’s Place, which had the biggest collection.
Kim posted an advertisement three months before the shutdown in 2008 seeking someone with space to house his collection.
The small town of Salemi, on the Italian island of Sicily, successfully bid for the collection, becoming the new home for Kim’s beloved collection.
Kim’s Video, directed by former video store members David Redmon and Ashley Sabin, tracks down the truth behind the VHS tapes sitting in a storage unit in Salemi, in Sicily, for years, gathering dust.
According to Kim, the film project has been the result of a six-year effort.
“When they first contacted me to show the part they shot, I was mostly in doubt. After I saw what they have done over the past three years, researching and interviewing all those former clerks, I couldn’t say no to their requests for help,” he says.
Kim joined them and together they took another three years to finally give the titles a safe return to New York in 2022.
Kim’s Video has a huge collection and it needed a lot of space. Finding a large enough space in New York was not easy
He recalls the moment he saw his videos neglected, exposed to rain and dust in a warehouse in Salemi.
“It was akin to the feelings of parents who send their children for adoption. I had imagined they would be in happy homes, receiving love and proper care.
“However, upon visiting, I found them wearing tattered clothes, appearing unkempt, with dirty faces and hands. It was a truly heart-wrenching sight,” Kim says.
After their return, Kim’s Video and Music was relaunched as Kim’s Video Underground with the help of the Alamo Drafthouse cinema chain in March 2022.
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Alamo has made 30,000 tapes available to consumers to borrow and continues to digitise them to offer streaming services.
“Kim’s Video has a huge collection and it needed a lot of space. Finding a large enough space in New York was not easy,” Kim says.
“Tim League, founder of Alamo and a big fan of independent and art films, came to the rescue by offering a space in the lobby of a theatre in lower Manhattan. Alamo is also subsidising the losses from Kim’s Video, helping the iconic video store live on,” Kim adds, thanking the cinema chain.