Rating: NR | Runtime: 88 minutes
Release Date: April 5th, 2024 (USA)
Studio: Drafthouse Films
Director(s): David Redmon & Ashley Sabin
Writer(s): David Redmon & Ashley Sabin

Wow, I’m stepping into the gold mine of cool.

I’m not fully versed on the whole Tim League saga beyond the fact that I distinctly remember there being stories about his failures in leadership at Drafthouse, its subsidiaries, and his other business ventures (Neon, Mondo, etc.) in connection with the abuse scandals of two well-known critics. I had thought it all ended with him selling his stakes in those businesses and stepping away because I suddenly stopped hearing his name. But now Drafthouse Films is back from the dead. League is back in the news. And the studio’s latest documentary Kim’s Video is very much a product of and for his continued entrepreneurship.

All that to say that anyone affected by League’s actions or those he lent a blind eye towards should probably know he does pop up at the end of this film. He must considering he now owns and operates the video collection at its center. I will say, however, that his role is small insofar as the full scope of directors David Redmon and Ashley Sabin’s journey. League is merely a facilitator to help put an end to what proves a crazy, impromptu amateur investigation turned “fictional” heist to get to the bottom of what happened when Yong-man Kim inexplicably decided to donate his NYC-based collection of 55,000+ titles to Salemi, Sicily.

I do remember that ordeal being widely talked about in cinema circles. Not just because Kim’s video stores closing saddened thousands of New Yorkers with eclectic tastes in curios and bootlegs, but also because he apparently had opportunities to donate his movies to American institutions too. The choice of Salemi was so outside-the-box that you had to believe there was more to the story. That Sicily agreeing to house the collection, digitize it, and make it available to Kim’s members was meant to be a boon to their economy while also keeping the legend alive. It just didn’t quite turn out as planned.

Credit Redmon for spending the time and money to follow this lark that began when he heard the films asking him to find them. We never see Redmon since he’s always behind the camera, but we imagine he’s a friendly fellow considering the trouble he gets into upon arriving in Salemi. He “breaks” into the collection after being told it’s closed to find it on the brink of complete destruction. He’s then chastised by the police chief and ultimately sent home with more questions than answers. That he keeps coming back, hunts down Kim, meets with former Salemi mayor Vittorio Sgarbi, and hatches a hair-brained extraction plan risking jail time in a foreign country forces us to assume Redmon is a bit insane.

Maybe that’s why we’re in his corner and why we laugh as he humorously partakes in very serious acts while law enforcement and mafiosos lie in close proximity. The story itself is crazy because of those connections (including a “mysterious” death) since this whole thing was supposed to be about preserving film history, but Redmon has a knack for making it even crazier by injecting himself into the subject as a heroic figure guided by the disembodied voices of filmmaking legends. The twists and turns are often jaw-dropping while the back-patting and glad-handing always proves a bit suspicious. It’s a joke gone too far mixed with an exorbitant amount of luck to correct a wrong few (if any) even remembered.

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Yong-man Kim in KIM’S VIDEO; courtesy of Drafthouse Films.