The movie
Return to Seoul
A twenty-five-year-old French woman returns to Korea, the country she was born in before being adopted by a French couple, for the very first time. She decides to track down her biological parents, but her journey takes a surprising turn.
Length: 117 min
Country: Belgium, Germany, France
Language spoken: French, English, Korean
Language subtitles: Dutch
Cast: Louis-Do de Lencquesaing, Oh Kwang-Rok, Guka Han, Yoann ZimmerPark Ji-min, Kim Sun-young
Director: Davy Chou
Release date: 13/04/2023
Description
Frédérique (the astounding Park Ji-min)—'Freddie’ to pretty much everyone—is South Korean by birth, but only speaks French, having been adopted as a baby by a couple living in the French countryside. In Seoul by accident after a typhoon forces her plane to land there, she haphazardly begins a search for her birth mother. Along the way, Cambodian-French director Davy Chou turns her odyssey into a search for self. He has made, in the words of ‘Rolling Stone’ magazine, ‘one of the best movies about identity crises ever…’
‘“Return to Seoul” is a funny, melancholy film that will surprise you start to finish… With its shifting palette and attentive eye, Chou's style respects [his heroine’s] unruliness. Rather than weave itself into a tidy narrative complete with tailor-made epiphanies, “Return to Seoul” lurches through eight years in a series of sharp, unpredictable episodes… I was held rapt by Park's bristling performance as Freddie, one made all the more astonishing because she's never acted before. Wow, does she have presence!’—John Powers, NPR
‘“Return to Seoul” is a funny, melancholy film that will surprise you start to finish… With its shifting palette and attentive eye, Chou's style respects [his heroine’s] unruliness. Rather than weave itself into a tidy narrative complete with tailor-made epiphanies, “Return to Seoul” lurches through eight years in a series of sharp, unpredictable episodes… I was held rapt by Park's bristling performance as Freddie, one made all the more astonishing because she's never acted before. Wow, does she have presence!’—John Powers, NPR
