# 301, 302 (삼공일 삼공이)
**301, 302** (삼공일 삼공이; also released as *Three-Oh-One, Three-Oh-Two*) is a 1995 South Korean psychological thriller directed by Park Chul-soo, about two single women living in adjoining apartments of a Seoul high-rise whose opposite relationships with food, compulsive cooking and eating on one side and refusal of food on the other, escalate into a fatal intimacy[1](https://www.koreafilm.or.kr/library/search/video/113886). It was the first film made by Park's own production company, Park Chul-soo Films, founded in 1994[2](https://netboardme.s3.amazonaws.com/published/1518/files/d2492609215cd311123628ab69fa585f.pdf); the 1995 Grand Bell Award for Best Film, Korea's top film prize, went instead to The Eternal Empire[3](https://eiga.com/movie/45040/) • [15](https://imnews.imbc.com/replay/1995/nwdesk/article/1950408_30705.html).
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Director / production | Park Chul-soo; Park Chul-soo Films, his first production under his own company[1](https://www.koreafilm.or.kr/library/search/video/113886) • [2](https://netboardme.s3.amazonaws.com/published/1518/files/d2492609215cd311123628ab69fa585f.pdf) |
| Screenplay | Lee Suh-gun, from an original work by Kim Su-kyung[4](https://koreafilm.co.kr/database/movie/301/301.htm) |
| Release | April 22, 1995 (South Korea); rated 18 and over[4](https://koreafilm.co.kr/database/movie/301/301.htm) |
| Runtime | 99 minutes (KOFA record; other databases list 100 to 101 minutes)[1](https://www.koreafilm.or.kr/library/search/video/113886) |
| Lead cast | Bang Eun-jin as Song-hee (apartment 301), Hwang Shin-hye as Yoon-hee (apartment 302), Kim Chu-ryeon as the detective[1](https://www.koreafilm.or.kr/library/search/video/113886) |
| Major awards | Blue Dragon Film Awards for Best Actress (Bang Eun-jin) and screenplay[3](https://eiga.com/movie/45040/) • [4](https://koreafilm.co.kr/database/movie/301/301.htm) |
| International standing | Korea's official entry for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar; screened in the Panorama section of the 46th Berlin International Film Festival[5](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1996-05-03-ca-122-story.html) • [4](https://koreafilm.co.kr/database/movie/301/301.htm) |
## Spoilers
### Plot
The story is set in a "new hope bio-apartment" marketed as bringing dreams and hope to city dwellers worn down by urban life[1](https://www.koreafilm.or.kr/library/search/video/113886). Song-hee (Bang Eun-jin), a divorced woman with an eating compulsion, moves into apartment 301. In her marriage she cooked constantly for her husband and found her sense of worth in it; when he turned away from her she became fixated on food, eventually cooking and serving her husband's pet dog, for which he divorced her[1](https://www.koreafilm.or.kr/library/search/video/113886).
Her neighbor in 302 is Yoon-hee (Hwang Shin-hye), a freelance writer who suffers from food refusal. As a child, hiding from the sexual assaults of her butcher stepfather in a freezer, she saw a neighborhood child freeze to death imitating her; since then she has rejected both food and sex, although she ironically writes columns about sex for women's magazines[1](https://www.koreafilm.or.kr/library/search/video/113886).
From the day Song-hee moves in, she mounts a continuous campaign of cooking for Yoon-hee, who cannot keep any of it down[4](https://koreafilm.co.kr/database/movie/301/301.htm). The film opens after Yoon-hee has disappeared, with a detective (Kim Chu-ryeon) questioning Song-hee, and unfolds through flashbacks from both women's points of view[5](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1996-05-03-ca-122-story.html) • [6](https://videolibrarian.com/reviews/film/301-302/). When each learns the other's past, the two reach an understanding, and Yoon-hee proposes that Song-hee use her body as an ingredient for a dish; Song-hee accepts[1](https://www.koreafilm.or.kr/library/search/video/113886).
## Production and context
Park Chul-soo, then a mid-career director known for films centered on women such as *Mother* (1985) and *A Pillar of Mist* (1986), founded Park Chul-soo Films in 1994 and made *301, 302* as its first project[7](https://www.biff.kr/kor/html/archive/arc_history_view.asp?kind=history&m_idx=10871&page=2&pyear=2013&sec=67) • [2](https://netboardme.s3.amazonaws.com/published/1518/files/d2492609215cd311123628ab69fa585f.pdf). In a 1995 interview he described the film as an explicitly independent production, saying he wanted to move beyond one-dimensional feminist statements and express women's loneliness and alienation through the unusual subjects of an eating disorder and a cooking compulsion[8](https://www.seoul.co.kr/news/1995/03/25/19950325014003).
The apartment setting carries the film's social argument. A study of apartment imagery in Korean cinema notes that the interiors of the two suites are designed to mirror their occupants: suite 301 is a clean, cold, kitchen-centered space with an oversized table reflecting the perfectionist chef, while suite 302 uses warm wood and natural light for the writer, and the film's real subject is the two women's loneliness and difficulty communicating across the wall between them[9](https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/7/3013).
## Reception and significance
**Domestic awards.** At the 16th Blue Dragon Film Awards it took Best Actress for Bang Eun-jin and the screenplay award, and at the 6th Chunsa Film Art Awards Bang Eun-jin again won Best Actress alongside a special makeup award; the film also received a new cinematographer award at the 19th Golden Cinema Awards[4](https://koreafilm.co.kr/database/movie/301/301.htm).
**International release.** *301, 302* was Korea's official entry for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film[5](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1996-05-03-ca-122-story.html) and played in the Panorama section of the 46th [Berlin International Film Festival](https://www.edgepedia.org/berlin-international-film-festival)[4](https://koreafilm.co.kr/database/movie/301/301.htm). It was the first Korean title submitted to the [Sundance Film Festival](https://www.edgepedia.org/sundance-film-festival), in 1996, and was distributed worldwide[2](https://netboardme.s3.amazonaws.com/published/1518/files/d2492609215cd311123628ab69fa585f.pdf). It became one of the first Korean movies to receive a theatrical release in the United States[11](https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/what-to-stream-the-best-movies-in-the-korean-film-archive), opening there on May 3, 1996[5](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1996-05-03-ca-122-story.html), and reached Japanese theaters on March 15, 1997[3](https://eiga.com/movie/45040/).
**Critical reading.** Reviewers treated the film as a dark comedy and psychological suspense piece built on the relationship between food and sex[5](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1996-05-03-ca-122-story.html). The scholar Joan Kee, writing in *positions: east asia cultures critique* in 2001, read the film's stylized opening and its crosscutting between past and present as an articulation of hysteria and of the emerging visibility of the independent urban woman in contemporary Korean film[12](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/31186381_Claiming_Sites_of_Independence_Articulating_Hysteria_in_Pak_Ch%27ol-su%27s_301302). A HanCinema review called it the first film of contemporary South Korean cinema in which feminism is the main theme, organized around food, the food-sex connection, and the reasons each woman arrived at her stance[13](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/301_302_1996). [The New Yorker](https://www.edgepedia.org/the-new-yorker) later described its taboo-violating ending as presaging the reputation for extremity Korean cinema would acquire in the following years[11](https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/what-to-stream-the-best-movies-in-the-korean-film-archive).
**Afterlife.** The film was remade in English as *Compulsion* (2013), starring [Heather Graham](https://www.edgepedia.org/heather-graham) and [Carrie-Anne Moss](https://www.edgepedia.org/carrie-anne-moss)[13](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/301_302_1996). The Korean Film Archive restored it in 2K in 2023 and released it on its YouTube channel, Korean Classic Film, in April 2024[14](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTC78e9riP8).
## References
1. [301 302, 영상도서관 자료검색, 한국영상자료원 (KOFA)](https://www.koreafilm.or.kr/library/search/video/113886)
2. [Foreword, Park Chul-soo retrospective program (Park Chul-soo Films founded 1994; first Korean title submitted to Sundance)](https://netboardme.s3.amazonaws.com/published/1518/files/d2492609215cd311123628ab69fa585f.pdf)
3. [301・302 : 作品情報・キャスト・あらすじ, 映画.com](https://eiga.com/movie/45040/)
4. [삼공일 삼공이 301, 302, Koreanfilm.co.kr database](https://koreafilm.co.kr/database/movie/301/301.htm)
5. [Kevin Thomas, "'301-302': Dark, Witty, Delicious," Los Angeles Times, May 3, 1996](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1996-05-03-ca-122-story.html)
6. [Randy Pitman, "301/302," Videolibrarian, September 17, 1997](https://videolibrarian.com/reviews/film/301-302/)
7. [Busan International Film Festival archive entry for 삼공일 삼공이](https://www.biff.kr/kor/html/archive/arc_history_view.asp?kind=history&m_idx=10871&page=2&pyear=2013&sec=67)
8. ["「301,302」 독립영화 첫 연출/박철수감독(인터뷰)," Seoul Shinmun, March 25, 1995](https://www.seoul.co.kr/news/1995/03/25/19950325014003)
9. ["The Negative Perceptions of Apartment Culture as Represented in Korean Films during the 1970s–1990s," Sustainability 12(7), 3013 (2020)](https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/7/3013)
10. ["Gluttony vs. regurgitation," San Francisco Chronicle](https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/gluttony-vs-regurgitation-3144979.php)
11. [Colin Marshall, "What to Stream: The Best Movies in the Korean Film Archive," The New Yorker](https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/what-to-stream-the-best-movies-in-the-korean-film-archive)
12. [Joan Kee, "Claiming Sites of Independence: Articulating Hysteria in Pak Ch'ol-su's 301/302," positions: east asia cultures critique 9(2), 2001](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/31186381_Claiming_Sites_of_Independence_Articulating_Hysteria_in_Pak_Ch%27ol-su%27s_301302)
13. [301, 302, Rotten Tomatoes](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/301_302_1996)
14. [삼공일 삼공이 (301, 302) 4K restoration, Korean Classic Film YouTube channel, April 29, 2024](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTC78e9riP8)
15. [제33회 대종상 시상식, 최우수 작품상 "영원한 제국"(김은주)](https://imnews.imbc.com/replay/1995/nwdesk/article/1950408_30705.html)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Horror films (individual works) › Psychological horror films › Psychological horror films, 1990s and 2000s*
*Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
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