There are a few different languages in Davy Chou’s “Return to Seoul” — French, Korean, a smattering of English — but perhaps the most important is music. The film’s initial third follows protagonist Freddie’s (Park Ji-min) first trip to Korea as a young adult after her adoption by a French family, where she almost stumbles into meeting her biological father (Oh Kwang-rok); throughout the film but especially in this section, Chou emphasizes the failure of translation to express the fullness of what a person wants to say, as Freddie’s biological aunt (Kim Sung-young) softens both Freddie’s sharply defined boundaries and her father’s boundless longing for connection.
There’s something tragically incomplete about Freddie: She’s French but with a piece of herself missing, Korean but alienated from that culture. Never truly home anywhere she goes, she rages against her sense of abandonment. It’s like Chou...
There’s something tragically incomplete about Freddie: She’s French but with a piece of herself missing, Korean but alienated from that culture. Never truly home anywhere she goes, she rages against her sense of abandonment. It’s like Chou...
- 2/23/2023
- by Sarah Shachat
- Indiewire
“Do you know what sight-reading is?” a young woman asks her dining companions. Neither of them know, so she explains: When you look over a score for the first time, “you have to able to analyze the music in one glance, evaluate the danger… and jump in.” The key is knowing how to read the signs, she adds. That applies to both music and in life.
Her name is Frédérique (Park Ji-min), though everyone calls her Freddie. She is South Korean by birth, but only speaks French — having been adopted...
Her name is Frédérique (Park Ji-min), though everyone calls her Freddie. She is South Korean by birth, but only speaks French — having been adopted...
- 2/17/2023
- by David Fear
- Rollingstone.com
Hamaguchi Ryusuke’s ‘Drive My Car’ secures eight nods.
Park Chan-wook’s Decision To Leave leads the nominations for this year’s Asian Film Awards (Afa) with 10 nods including best film and best director.
Korean films have secured nominations in every category for the 16th edition of the awards, which will return to Hong Kong for the first time in three years, having been hosted in Busan for two years and not held in 2022.
Scroll down for full list of nominations
Korean romantic noir Decision To Leave premiered in Competition at Cannes last May, where Park won best director. As...
Park Chan-wook’s Decision To Leave leads the nominations for this year’s Asian Film Awards (Afa) with 10 nods including best film and best director.
Korean films have secured nominations in every category for the 16th edition of the awards, which will return to Hong Kong for the first time in three years, having been hosted in Busan for two years and not held in 2022.
Scroll down for full list of nominations
Korean romantic noir Decision To Leave premiered in Competition at Cannes last May, where Park won best director. As...
- 1/6/2023
- by Michael Rosser
- ScreenDaily
Park Chan-wook’s stylish crime drama Decision to Leave leads the nominations for this year’s Asian Film Awards with a sweeping 10 nods, including Best Director and Best Film.
The film’s impressive nominations haul also includes a Best Screenplay nod and acting nominations for leads Park Hae-il and Tang Wei, as well as below-the-line recognition for Cinematography, Editing, Music, and Production Design.
Decision to Leave follows a detective (Park Hae-il) investigating a man’s death in the mountains when he meets the dead man’s mysterious wife, a suspect in the case, and begins a tangled affair. The film debuted at Cannes where Park won the Best Director prize. Korea has also submitted the film as its entry for the international feature Oscar race.
Japanese filmmaker Hamaguchi Ryusuke’s Drive My Car trails with eight nominations. The epic road movie also debuted at Cannes, but in 2021. Elsewhere, Hirokazu Koreeda...
The film’s impressive nominations haul also includes a Best Screenplay nod and acting nominations for leads Park Hae-il and Tang Wei, as well as below-the-line recognition for Cinematography, Editing, Music, and Production Design.
Decision to Leave follows a detective (Park Hae-il) investigating a man’s death in the mountains when he meets the dead man’s mysterious wife, a suspect in the case, and begins a tangled affair. The film debuted at Cannes where Park won the Best Director prize. Korea has also submitted the film as its entry for the international feature Oscar race.
Japanese filmmaker Hamaguchi Ryusuke’s Drive My Car trails with eight nominations. The epic road movie also debuted at Cannes, but in 2021. Elsewhere, Hirokazu Koreeda...
- 1/6/2023
- by Zac Ntim
- Deadline Film + TV
a shark-like adoption drama that its 25-year-old heroine wears like an extra layer of skin or sharp cartilage. The film spans eight years over the course of two hours, but you can feel its bristly texture and self-possessed violence from the disorienting first scenes.
Played by plastic artist and first-time actress Park Ji-Min (who gives a towering performance worthy of the same attention that Cate Blanchett and Michelle Yeoh will receive for their work this fall), the French-raised Freddie arrives in Seoul without context, which leaves us the fool’s errand of trying to “solve” her identity over a few too many glasses of soju with her new friends. Some clues are easier to decipher than others. While Freddie may have been born in the country — and carry what some of her drinking buddies agree is “a typical Korean face” from “ancient, ancestral” times — it’s clear that this is...
Played by plastic artist and first-time actress Park Ji-Min (who gives a towering performance worthy of the same attention that Cate Blanchett and Michelle Yeoh will receive for their work this fall), the French-raised Freddie arrives in Seoul without context, which leaves us the fool’s errand of trying to “solve” her identity over a few too many glasses of soju with her new friends. Some clues are easier to decipher than others. While Freddie may have been born in the country — and carry what some of her drinking buddies agree is “a typical Korean face” from “ancient, ancestral” times — it’s clear that this is...
- 9/8/2022
- by David Ehrlich
- Indiewire
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