Tag: South Korea

Review: ‘No Other Choice,’ starring Lee Byung-hun, Son Ye-jin, Park Hee-soon, Lee Sung-min, Yeom Hye-ran and Cha Seung-won

October 12, 2025

by Carla Hay

Lee Byung-hun in “No Other Choice” (Photo courtesy of Neon)

“No Other Choice”

Directed by Park Chan-wook

Korean with subtitles

Culture Representation: Taking place in South Korea, the comedy/drama film “No Other Choice” (based on the novel “The Ax”) features a predominantly Asian cast of characters (with some white people) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: A manager at a paper manufacturing company gets laid off after 25 years with the company, and he decides to murder the rival applicants for the job that he wants.

Culture Audience: “No Other Choice” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of filmmaker Park Chan-wook, the movie’s headliners, and dark comedies that skewer the cutthroat sides of business.

Lee Byung-hun in “No Other Choice” (Photo courtesy of Neon)

“No Other Choice” is a compelling satirical look at unemployment trauma and how a laid-off manager goes to extreme lengths to eliminate competition for a new job that he wants. The movie takes a while to get suspenseful, but the performances are superb. This dark comedy is a searing commentary on how a company making layoffs for cost-cutting reasons can take a very real and damaging toll on human lives that go beyond what can be measured in financial terms.

Directed by Park Chan-wook, “No Other Choice” was co-written by Park, Don McKellar, Lee Kyoung-mi and Lee Ja-hye. The movie is adapted from Donald Westlake’s 1997 novel “The Ax,” which was set in the United States. “No Other Choice” takes place in South Korea. The movie had its world premiere at the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival and made the rounds at other film festivals in 2005, including the Toronto International Film Festival, the New York Film Festival and the BFI London Film Festival.

“No Other Choice” begins by showing the idyllic family life of factory manager Yoo Man-su (played by Lee Byung-hun) at their comfortable middle-class home. Man-su, his wife Lee Mi-ri (played by Son Ye-jin), their two children—son Si-One (who is about 11 or 12 years old) and their non-verbal daughter Ri-One (who is 10 years old)—are having a barbecue party in their backyard for Mi-ri because it’s her birthday. The four family members are the only people at this party.

Mi-ri (who works as a dental hygienist) and Man-su are happily married. Their children are good kids who don’t cause any problems. The family seems to be so picture-perfect, they’ve named their two Golden Retriever dogs (Si-Two and Ri-Two) after the two children. Mi-ri opens her birthday gift from Man-su. It’s a pair of high-heeled shoes. She jokes good-naturedly, “They say you shouldn’t give shoes to your lover because they might run away.

For the past 25 years, Man-su has been employed by Solar Paper, a paper manufacturing company. He is currently a well-respected manager of a Solar Paper factory. He prides himself on being a paper expert. During the barbecue party, Man-soo reads note that he received the company. The note says, “Thanks for your hard work at Solar Paper.” Man-su gathers his family around him so they can give each other a group hug. “I have it all,” Man-su says aloud with happiness and contentment.

Man-su’s stable life will soon be disrupted by changes at Solar Paper. First, he’s ordered to lay off 20% of his staff due to budget cuts. And then, Man-su is laid off too. Man-su is in shock because he thought that his longevity, hard work, excellent performance reviews, and loyalty to the company would make him immune from the layoffs. At the suggestion of Solar Paper, a despondent Man-su joins a support group for laid-off employees.

Three months later, the only work that Man-su has been able to find is a low-paying job stocking products at a big-box retail store. One of his former Solar Paper subordinates named Nam-su, who was also laid off by Solar Paper, now works for a rival company called Papyrus. Nam-su helps Man-su get a job interview at Papryus, but it’s a job at a lower level than what Man-su had at Solar Paper. In fact, if Man-su gets this job at Papyrus, he would have to report to Nam-su.

Man-su needs the money, so he does the job interview, which is conducted by a panel of four men. During the interview, Man-su rattles off a list of his accomplishments. When he’s asked what he think is his biggest weakness, Man-su replies that his biggest weakness is not being able to answer that question. This cheekiness doesn’t work. Man-su doesn’t get the job.

At home, Man-su is feeling the pressure of bringing in an income so that he and his family can continue in the life to which they’ve become accustomed. In order to reduce their expenses, the Man-Su and Miri cancel the family’s Netflix subscription and give the family’s two dogs to Mi-ri’s parents (played by Oh Gwang-rok and Lee Yong-nyeo), but Mi-ri does not want to cancel Ri-One’s cello lessons because Ri-One is a very talented cello player. Mi-ri says that Ri-One is a musical prodigy who should have a teacher who is a college-level music professor.

Man-su’s biggest fear is that he will have to sell their house, which was his childhood home that he bought after he and his family moved around several times. He fulfilled a major dream by buying this house. However, the house mortgage is in default, and the house will be in foreclosure if the overdue mortgage is not paid in three months. Mi-ri thinks that they should sell the house, but Man-su vehemently disagrees.

Desperate people sometimes do desperate things. Man-su applies for a manager position at another company called Moon Paper, which is even more successful than Solar Paper. The job would also pay more than the salary that Man-su had at Solar Paper. With the deadline approaching to pay his overdue mortgage, Man-su finds out who else applied for the job, and he plans to kill them all.

One of the most darkly comedic parts of the movie is how Man-su deals with a Moon Paper job applicant rival named Koo Beom-mo (played by Lee Sung-min), who has been unemployed for eight months, is often drunk, and is having marital problems with his aspiring actress wife Lee A-ra (played by Yeom Hye-ran), who resents having to be the sole source of income for their household. Other supporting characters in the movie are Moon Paper line manager Choi Sun-chul (played by Park Hee-soon) and Moon Paper job applicant Ko Si-jo (played by Cha Seung-won).

“No Other Choice” (which clocks in at 139 minutes) doesn’t get to the murder schemes until the last half of the film. It’s the movie’s way of showing the gradual mental unraveling of Man-su and how he is planning on committing crimes that he wouldn’t have ever considered doing if hadn’t lost his job. Although all of the acting is done very well, Lee Byung-hun is the obvious standout as the troubled Man-su, an anti-hero who is both overwhelmed but also calculating about his predicament.

“No Other Choice,” which has impressive cinematography by Kim Woo-hyung, is a rare movie that skillfully balances a tone that is darkly disturbing and absurdly comedic. The movie also invites viewers to ponder the emotional cost of Man-su’s murderous schemes. Even if Man-su succeeds in getting what he wants, will he lose his soul in the process? Considering that there’s no guarantee that he won’t get laid off from the job that he wants, “No Other Choice” has an ironic title and story about obsessive tunnel vision that doesn’t consider life’s unexpected possibilities.

Neon will release “No Other Choice” in select U.S. cinemas on December 25, 2025, with an expansion to more U.S. cinemas. A sneak preview of the movie will be shown in U.S. cinemas on December 8, 2025. “No Other Choice” was released in South Korea on September 25, 2025.

Review: ‘Leaving Mom,’ starring Hong Dao, Tuan Tran, Juliet Bảo Ngọc and Jung Il-woo

August 30, 2025

by Carla Hay

Tuan Tran and Hong Dao in “Leaving Mom” (Photo courtesy of Eastern Edge Films)

“Leaving Mom”

Directed by Mo Hong-jin

Vietnamese and Korean with subtitles

Culture Representation: Taking place in Vietnam and in South Korea, the dramatic film “Leaving Mom” features an all-Asian cast of characters representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: A financially struggling Vietnamese street barber is the caregiver for his mother, who has dementia, and they eventually travel to South Korea to find the older son whom she left behind to live with other relatives more than 30 years earlier. 

Culture Audience: “Leaving Mom” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners and emotionally moving dramas about family caregivers and looking for long-lost relatives.

Bae Yeon-woo and Juliet Bảo Ngọc in “Leaving Mom” (Photo courtesy of Eastern Edge Films)

“Leaving Mom” can get a little overstuffed with its two major storylines about caregiving for a parent with dementia and looking for a long-lost family member. However, this drama has very good performances, even if some of the scenes veer into triteness. The outcome of this family search might be divisive to people who see the movie, but at least this outcome is not predictable.

Written and directed by Mo Hong-jin, “Leaving Mom” is told in non-chronological order. The flashback scenes in the movie (which go back to more than 30 years before the present-day part of the story) might be a little confusing at first. However, the circumstances of each flashback are eventually explained through conversations that the characters have in the story. “Leaving Mom” is also a rare movie that shows a family that has cross-cultural heritage in Vietnam and in South Korea.

The two central characters in “Leaving Mom” are a 29-year-old street barber named Hoan (played by Tuan Tran) and his mother Lê Thị Hanh (played by Hong Dao), who are financially poor and who live together in an unnamed city in Vietnam. Hanh has late-stage Alzheimer’s disease. The biological father of Hoan is not seen or mentioned in the movie. It’s implied that Hanh raised Hoan as a single parent.

Hoan, who is a never-married bachelor with no children, can’t afford to place Hanh in a private nursing facility. He doesn’t want to put her in a government-operated facility, where he fears that Hanh would be neglected and/or abused. Hoan has his own health issues: He has epilepsy, which usually gets triggered when he is in a stressful situation.

The movie’s opening scene is shown from Hanh’s perspective. She is in a dingy apartment, with her legs and arms tied by rope to a chair. She thinks she has been kidnapped. She’s very hungry and asks the man who comes into the room if she can have something to eat.

The “kidnapper” is actually Hoan, who has to tie up his mother when he has to leave her alone in the apartment, so that she doesn’t wander off or accidentally hurt herself. Hoan has returned to the apartment and unties the ropes so that Hanh can eat. Hanh eats like someone who doesn’t remember how to use utensils.

Hanh’s memories fade in and out about Hoan’s real identity. Sometimes she calls him Mister Captor. Sometimes she calls him Mister Police Officer, based on memories of her older son Ji-hwan telling her a child that he wanted to be a police officer.

Hanh has not seen Ji-hwan for more than 30 years, since he was about 5 or 6 years old (played by an absolutely adorable Bae Yeon-woo), when she left him to live with her deceased husband’s married brother in South Korea. Hanh reluctantly moved back to Vietnam, under the pressure from her late husband’s mother, who felt that Ji-hwan would be better off being raised by a financially stable married couple instead of a financially unstable widow. Very little is told in the movie about Hanh’s life after she moved back to Vietnam in her pre-dementia years.

Hoan, who uses a bicycle cart for transportation, almost always takes Hanh with him when he has to work. He has a small circle of friends that include Chau (played by Lâm Vỹ Dạ) and Tuan (played by Quốc Khanh), a married couple who own an operate a small outdoor food stand; a macho guy named Minh (played by Vinh Râu); and a transgender woman named Anh Dung (played by Đào Hải Triều).

All of these friends have different opinions on whether or not Hoan should find Ji-hwan so that she can live with Ji-hwan in South Korea, which Hoan thinks has better and more affordable health care for people with Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia. Hoan is certain that Ji-hwan would be able to afford this health care for Hanh. Chau and Tuan think it’s a good idea, while Minh and Anh Dung are skeptical and discourage Hoan from relocating Hanh from Vietnam to South Korea.

There’s another reason why Hoan thinks going to South Korea will be better for Hanh’s health. She’s been heartbroken over having to leave Ji-hwan behind. Hoan takes on the responsibility of finding Ji-hwan and has to rely on what Hanh told him from her memories before she had dementia.

Flashbacks show a young Hanh (played by Juliet Bảo Ngọc), when she was a Vietnamese immigrant in South Korea and happily married to a South Korean businessman named Kim Jeon-min (played by Jung Il-woo), who was a devoted husband and father. These flashbacks reveal what Hanh’s life was like before Hoan was born and the tragedy that led to her leaving Ji-hwan in South Korea. The tragedy caused Hanh to feel a lot of guilt, which is another reason why she was convinced that she should move back to Vietnam.

Before the tragedy, Hanh was a vibrant woman who loved to play acoustic guitar. This type of guitar becomes a symbol of her past life in South Korea, long before she had dementia. If there’s anything missing from these flashbacks, it’s a depiction of Hoan’s childhood.

Some of the scenes in “Leaving Mom” are a bit repetitive and make their point the first time and didn’t need be repeated. For example, there are multiple scenes of Hanh smearing her feces on the apartment walls or references to Hanh having to use a bucket for her body waste when she is tied to a chair. These scenes might be too gross for some viewers to watch, but it’s a realistic depiction of the unpleasant realities of many people who have dementia.

“Leaving Mom” tends to wander and drag in the middle section of the movie. And it takes a little too long in the film before Hoan and Hanh finally go to South Korea. However, Hong and Tuan give unforgettable and impactful performances as a mother and a son who experience difficulties because of health issues but have ways of finding strength in each other.

Eastern Edge Films released “Leaving Mom” in select U.S. cinemas on August 28, 2025. The movie was released in Vietnam on July 30, 2025.

Review: ‘6Days” (2025), starring Sungjin, Young K, Wonpil and Dowoon

August 30, 2025

by Carla Hay

The members of Day6 in “6Days.” Pictured clockwise, from top left: Sungjin, Wonpil, Young K and Dowoon. (Photo courtesy of CJ CGV Holdings)

“6Days” (2025)

Directed by Yoo Seok Jong and Jaeseok Hwang

Korean and English with subtitles

Culture Representation: Taking place in California, the musical film “6Days” features a racially diverse cast of characters (Asian, white, Native American, African American and Latin) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: K-pop rock band Day6 goes on a six-day road trip to celebrate the band’s 10th anniversary, while performing songs and meeting various people along the way. 

Culture Audience: “6Days” will appeal primarily to Day6 fans and people who don’t mind watching a boring music-video-styled film.

The members of Day6 in “6Days.” Pictured from left to right: Young K, Dowoon, Sungjin, and Wonpil. (Photo courtesy of CJ CGV Holdings)

The dreadfully dull “6Days” is a “road trip” vanity project for the pop/rock band Day6. This film flop is so generic and limp, no one should pay money to see this so-called docudrama, which is really an uncreative compilation of staged music videos. “6Days” was originally released in theaters. Anyone except Day 6’s die-hard fans will probably feel cheated if any time or money is spent watching “6 Days,” which should’ve been released on the Internet for free.

Directed by Yoo Seok Jong and Jaeseok Hwang, “6Days” is supposed to be a chronicle of a “spontaneous” six-day road trip taken by the four members of 6Days, to celebrate the band’s 10th anniversary. There’s nothing “spontaneous” about “6Days,” which is filled with boring dialogue, terrible acting and extremely hokey contrived scenarios. “6Days” did not have to be decadent to be exciting. It just had to be interesting, but it fails to be interesting on almost every level.

The four members of Day6—singer/guitarist Sungjin, bass player/singer Young K, keyboardist Wonpil and drummer Dowoon—are shown in one of three scenarios in the movie:

  • Riding in a truck driven by Sungjin and having forgettable and mundane conversations.
  • Getting themselves into situations that are supposed to be outside of the band’s “comfort zone.”
  • Meeting people who put the band in a situation to perform Day6 songs

The road trip takes place in California, with most of the footage filmed in the desert area of California’s Imperial County. In the alternative community known as Slab City, the Day6 band members marvel at the eccentric misfits and industrial artwork. The famous tourist attraction Salvation Mountain is also featured in “6Days.”

The band is seen performing usually in locations (such as on a desert cliff) where there’s no place to plug in the electrical instruments that they’re fake-playing for the cameras. Toward the end of the movie, the band ends up on an unnamed beach. This movie has a weird fixation on showing the band members in locations where there’s a lot of sand.

The conversations that the Day6 members have in the movie are almost painfully lackluster and corny. At one point Young K says while inside the truck, “Everything I see becomes music,” just minutes before the band is shown in yet another music video-styled performance. The performances in the movie aren’t really live. They’re lip synced to the original recordings.

While in Imperial County, the band members help a truck that’s stuck in the dirt on the road. The truck is occupied by Clayson Benally and his sister Jeneda Benally (playing versions of themselves) of the musical duo Sihasin. The Benally siblings invite Day6 to their ramshackle desert home, where Clayson and Jeneda show Day6 some of their Navajo tribe musical traditions. The interactions look very forced and awkward.

Later, a middle-aged guy named Dave (played by Ryan Barrier), who says he’s an event promoter (but he looks like a stereotypical used car salesman), just happens to be in a remote part of the desert at the same time as Day6. When Dave finds out that these four guys are in a band, he invites the band to a show that he’s promoting at a place called Junk Sculpture (which is really just a junkyard with a stage), with an audience of less than 20 people.

The performers at this show are awful. And so what does Dave do? He invites Day6 to perform on stage. And, of course, the stage just happens to be already set up with the musical equipment that the band needs. It should also come as no surprise that the band gets an enthusiastic response from the audience.

After this phony-looking concert, Dave allows the band members to drive his dune buggy. And so, there’s a tedious chunk of time showing the band members (or their stunt doubles) doing daredevil dune buggy riding in the desert sand. Some of the movie’s cinematography is pretty good, but “6Days” has a lack of imagination and creativity everywhere else.

After saying goodbye to Dave, one of the most cliché things that could happen in a road trip movie happens to Day6: The band’s truck gets stolen. And you just know that hitchhiking scene is going to happen, to show how “cute” it is for the four band members to stick out their hitchhiker thumbs at the same time on a deserted road.

The 81-minute “6Days” is obviously a promotional showcase for Day6’s music. But for a feature-length song-oriented film, “6Days” doesn’t have as many songs as it could’ve had. The movie’s song soundtrack (consisting of only Day6 songs) has only 10 songs: “Welcome to the Show,” “You Were Beautiful,” “I’m Serious,” “Melt Down,” “Congratulations” (Final Version), “Time of Our Life,” “Letting Go” (Rebooted Version), “Happy,” “When You Love Someone” and “Dream Rider.”

If the band members had undeniable charisma, it would make up for all the other nonsense in “6Days.” Although they seem like nice guys, the Day6 band members’ personalities are as bland as bland can be. Unless you’re a huge fan of Day6, you won’t be able to remember much about what sets one band member’s personality apart from another. The Beatles had “A Hard Day’s Night,” but Day6 has the embarrassingly lackluster “6Days,” which should be subtitled “A Hard Day6 Blight.”

CJ CGV Holdings released “6Days” in select U.S. cinemas on August 28, 2025.

Review: ‘My Daughter Is a Zombie,’ starring Jo Jung-suk, Lee Jung-eun, Cho Yeo-jeong, Yoon Kyung-ho and Choi Yoo-ri

August 9, 2025

by Carla Hay

Choi Yoo-ri, Lee Jung-eun and Jo Jung-suk in “My Daughter Is a Zombie” (Photo courtesy of Next Entertainment World)

“My Daughter Is a Zombie”

Directed by Pil Gam-sung

Korean with subtitles

Culture Representation: Taking place in Seoul, South Korea, the comedy/drama/horror film “My Daughter Is a Zombie” (based on the webtoon series of the same name) features an all-Asian cast of characters representing the working-class and middle-class.

Culture Clash: A man fights to protect his zombie daughter during a zombie pandemic, where infected people are killed by authorities, and people are financially rewarded for reporting those who have been infected with the zombie virus.

Culture Audience: “My Daughter Is a Zombie” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners and zombie films that are both comedic and emotionally dramatic.

Pictured clockwise, from left: Lee Jung-eun, Cho Yeo-jeong, Yoon Kyung-ho, Jo Jung-suk and Choi Yoo-ri in “My Daughter Is a Zombie” (Photo courtesy of Next Entertainment World)

“My Daughter is a Zombie” is more of a comedy/drama about family loyalties during a zombie pandemic than a gruesome horror story. Despite uneven pacing, the performances are dynamic, and there are keen observations about authoritarianism during a crisis. The movie’s last 15 minutes are a bit rushed, but it succeeds in its intended emotional impact.

Directed by Pil Gam-sung (who co-wrote the “My Daughter Is a Zombie” screenplay with Kim Huyn), “My Daughter Is a Zombie” is based on the 2018 to 2020 webtoon series of the same name. The movie takes place in Seoul, South Korea, where “My Daughter Is a Zombie” was filmed on location. The zombie pandemic is supposed to be worldwide, but the movie only shows what happens in Seoul.

“My Daughter Is a Zombie” begins by showing a man named Lee Jung-hwan (played by Jo Jung-suk) cheerfully arriving at his hillside home. Jung-hwan works as a tiger trainer at a zoo. He greets his orange male tabby cat Meowmeow.

And then, Jung-hwan goes inside, where the TV news is doing a report about the zombie virus infection that has been plaguing the world, but this plague is now under control. Jung-hwan’s house might look like a stable home, but Jung-hwan has a secret, which he reveals in a voiceover: “My daughter is a zombie—the world’s last zombie.”

“My Daughter Is a Zombie” then flashes back to how everything got to this point. Jung-hwan is a bachelor father to a daughter named Lee Soo-a (played by Choi Yoo-ri), who is about 12 or 13 years old. Soo-a and Jung-hwan are very close to each other. Before the zombie pandemic happened, Jung-hwan (a former dancer) was training Soo-a for dance competition that she wanted to enter.

Jung-hwan’s mother Kim Bam-sun (played by Lee Jung-eun), who is very feisty and opinionated, adores Jung-hwan and Soo-a. Bam-sun lives several miles away, but she communicates with Jung-hwan and Soo-a by phone, often through videoconferencing. Bam-sun prides herself on being able to cook meals that Soo-a likes.

The zombie apocalypse happens very quickly and with no advance warning. Jung-hwan and Soo-a are attacked by zombies in a street, but Jung-hwan and Soo-a manage to escape to Jung-hwan’s car by pretending to be zombies. Jung-hwan and Soo-a (with Meowmeow in tow) drive to his mother Bam-sun’s house for safety. But on the way there, Jung-hwan finds out that Soo-a was bitten by a zombie, and she is quickly turning into a zombie.

Soo-a lunges at Jung-hwan, who crashes the car when he tries to restrain Soo-a. Somehow, Jung-hwan and Soo-a make it to Bam-sun’s place. Bam-sun is very upset when she finds out that Soo-a is a zombie. But there are indications that Soo-a hasn’t fully become a zombie, such as she still likes to eat Bam-sun’s food. Although Soo-a craves human flesh, that is not her single-minded focus when it comes to eating.

Soo-a also seems to still understand human speech. And so, Jung-hwan gets the idea that he can train Soo-a not to attack humans, just like he trains tigers at his zoo job. Jung-hwan and Bam-su have to keep it a secret that Soo-a is a zombie. Things have gotten so bad with this zombie virus, the South Korean government is giving monetary rewards to people who report where zombie-infected people can be found and killed by authorities.

Meanwhile (as already revealed in the trailer for “My Daughter Is a Zombie), two other people find out Soo-a’s secret: Jung-hwan’s somewhat goofy best friend Jo Dong-bae (played by Yoon Kyung-ho) and Jung-hwan’s former childhood friend Shin Yeon-hwa (played by Cho Yeo-jeong), who hasn’t seen Jung-hwan in years. Dong-bae and Bam-sun both say that Bam-sun had a childhood crush on Yeon-hwa. And even though Jung-hwa denies it, you can tell this information is true.

Jung-hwan and Yeon-hwa see each other again when Jung-hwan is at a cosmetics store to buy makeup for Soo-a (to cover up Soo-a’s zombie complexion), and he hides on the floor because he doesn’t want Yeon-hwa to see him buying makeup. Yeon-hwa, who has a no-nonsense and strong-willed personality, is a teacher at Eunbong Middle School. Jung-hwa is dismayed and alarmed when Yeon-hwa reveals to him that she hates zombies and is now ranked as the top person in their community to report people who are infected with the zombie virus.

The rest of “My Daughter Is a Zombie” shows several hijinks that ensue regarding attempts to hide the secret of Soo-a being a zombie and training Soo-a to integrate into society without people noticing that she’s a zombie. The movie later reveals that Soo-a being a zombie is not the only family secret. The middle part of the movie tends to drag, but the last third of the film is the best because viewers will see a topsy-turvy sequence of events.

All of the cast members perform very well in their roles. Jo, Choi and Lee especially have fantastic chemistry together as three generations of the same family who are coping with this unusual and difficult situation. (Jo, who has experience in musical theater, also shows some his dance skills in a flashback scene of when Jung-hwan was a dancer.)

The movie has some comedic moments (mostly from visual effects) with the family cat Meowmeow. There’s also some dark satire about human greed and abuse of power that arise because of monetary rewards for reporting zombie-infected people. “My Daughter Is a Zombie” isn’t the funniest horror comedy you could ever see, but it’s mostly entertaining and worth watching for anyone who wants to see a rare zombie movie that isn’t filled with a lot of bloody violence and has a lot to say about family love.

Next Entertainment World released “My Daughter Is a Zombie” in select U.S. cinemas on August 8, 2025. The movie was released in South Korea on July 30, 2025.

Review: ‘The Rose: Come Back to Me,’ starring Woosung ‘Sammy’ Kim, Dojoon ‘Leo’ Park, Taegyeom ‘Jeff’ Lee and Hajoon ‘Dylan’ Lee

August 7, 2025

by Carla Hay

Dojoon “Leo” Park, Taegyeom “Jeff” Lee (in white suit), Woosung “Sammy” Kim and Hajoon “Dylan” Lee in “The Rose: Come Back to Me” (Photo by Richard Hama/Wavelength Productions)

“The Rose: Come Back to Me”

Directed by Eugene Yi

Some language in Korean with subtitles

Culture Representation: The documentary film “The Rose Come Back to Me” (filmed from 2023 to 2024) features a predominantly Asian group of people (with some white people) who are connected in some way to The Rose, a South Korean rock band.

Culture Clash: The members of The Rose have had battles with their former record label, their former management and various personal issues in their aim to stay true to themselves to not be exploited.

Culture Audience: “The Rose: Come Back to Me” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in documentaries about independent rock artists and music from South Korea.

Taegyeom “Jeff” Lee, Hajoon “Dylan” Lee, Dojoon “Leo” Park and Woosung “Sammy” Kim in “The Rose: Come Back to Me” (Photo by Richard Hama/Wavelength Productions)

“The Rose: Come Back to Me” is a formulaic but charming biographical documentary about this resilient rock band. The concert scenes are electrifying. And the Rose band members are forthright about their flaws. The movie hits a lot of familiar beats about the ups and downs of music artists who experience conflicts and challenges while trying to hold on to artistic integrity and creative freedom.

Directed by Eugene Yi, “The Rose: Come Back to Me” had its world premiere at the 2025 Tribeca Festival. The documentary was filmed from late 2023 to early 2025. There are also archival clips from other sources.

“The Rose: Come Back to Me” begins with a highlight from The Rose’s career so far: the band’s first performance at the 2024 Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in Indio, California. Fittingly, the song performed in this scene is The Rose’s “Back to Me.” The movie then shows the band’s story and how the Rose got to this milestone festival gig.

The Rose was formed South Korea in 2017. The band had quick success that year when the band’s music video for the single “Sorry” became a viral hit on You Tube. The Rose also grew its fan base through touring. The band signed with J&Star Company, a combination of a record label and a management company. By the end of 2018, The Rose had released two EPs: “Void” and “Dawn,” which yielded the respective hit singles “Baby” and “She’s in the Rain.” Then, there was the 2019 singles compilation album “Red,” which included the title track. All were hits in South Korea.

Although “The Rose: Come Back to Me” is very much about the band, the movie has very good editing that allows each member of The Rose to tell his personal story. All of the members of the band were born in South Korea. However, lead singer Woosung “Sammy” Kim was raised in the Los Angeles area, and is the only member of The Rose who is a U.S. citizen.

The four members of the band are:

  • Woosung “Sammy” Kim, born in 1993, is the band’s charismatic lead singer. He had a background in DSP Media training to be a K-pop artist (he came in third place on South Korea’s “K-Pop Star” in 2012), but he quit the K-pop training program in order to pursue a music career that is authentic to who he is. In a documentary interview, Kim says that he had a “yo-yo diet” and felt “depressed” during K-Pop training experience. “I felt like a robot,” he adds.
  • Dojoon “Leo” Park, born in 1993, is the band’s guitarist/keyboardist and is credited with being the driving force for the band’s songwriting. Park started out as a street busker in the 2010s and was also briefly a DSP Media trainee in K-pop.
  • Taegyeom “Jeff” Lee, born in 1994, is the band’s bass guitarist, who has a sensitive and deep-thinking personality. His father, San Hyung Lee (a former professional musician), who is seen playing music with Jeff in the documentary, encouraged Jeff to become a musician. In the documentary, Jeff (who is also actor) candidly talks about his mental health struggles with depression.
  • Hajoon “Dylan” Lee, born in 1994, is the band’s drummer. He is the quietest one in the band and the one who says the least about his personal life. However, its obvious that rhythm section members Dylan and Jeff have a close bond with each other.

Kim (who met Park through K-pop training) was the last one to join The Rose. Park, Jeff and Dylan were previously a busking trio named Windfall. The documentary includes The Rose discussing one of the band’s most difficult challenges. In 2019, The Rose sued J&Star Company for lack of payment. J&Star Company countersued. The lawsuit put The Rose on a forced hiatus, during which Park, Jeff and Dylan went into South Korean military service, which requires South Korean able-bodied South Korean male citizens between the ages of 18 to 28 to serve for 18 to 21 months.

After the lawsuit was settled in The Rose’s favor in 2022, The Rose signed with new management Transparent Arts. The band regrouped and mounted a resurgence, with the release of the albums “Heal” (2022) and “Dual” (2023). The Rose’s EP “WRLD” was released in May 2025. The band members express camaraderie with each other and gratitude for their fans throughout the documentary. Although the band’s hiatus and legal battles were emotionally stressful, the members of The Rose also say that these learning experiences made them stronger when the band members reunited.

“The Rose: Come Back to Me” keeps the documentary interviews limited to the band members and people in The Rose’s inner circle. Kim’s mother Hannah Persi is briefly in the documentary, where she shows some childhood photos of him. Music producer Zakk Cervini and Transparent Arts executives Daniel Park, Rachel Seokyung Lee, Kirby Lee, Kevin Nishimura, James Roh and Virman Coquia are among those who share their positive thoughts on The Rose. Nishimura, Roh and Coquia had fame in the 2010s, as members of the hip-hop group Far East Movement (best known for the 2010 hit “Like G6”), and they mention that they want to help give Asian artists the types of opportunities that didn’t exist for Far East Movement.

During songwriting sessions, the documentary shows Park taking the lead for composing music and melodies, while Kim is the band’s chief lyricist. As such, Park and Kim seem to have a special bond with each other, just like rhythm section Jeff and Dylan are closer to each other than the other members of The Rose. It’s an interpersonal dynamic that the band accepts and doesn’t try to change.

However, in the documentary, The Rose doesn’t hide that there’s been internal friction because Kim, as the heartthrob lead singer, gets most of the attention. It’s mentioned in the documentary that J&Star Company attempted to drive a wedge between Kim and his band mates because J&Star Company wanted Kim to leave The Rose to become a solo artist. Kim refused to leave The Rose, but band relations got so bad at the time, J&Star Company would only communicate with the band through Kim. This dysfunction led to harmful gossip and a lot of tension, says Kim.

The band also talks about weathering the storm of controversy that erupted in 2023, when Kim’s 2016 arrest and conviction for marijuana possession were made public. Kim pled guilty to the charge and received a suspended sentence for possessing a small amount of marijuana. South Korea’s travel visa approval laws are stricter than other countries, when it comes to approving a visa for someone with past drug conviction. Kim’s drug conviction could have put The Rose’s touring plans in jeopardy. He has made several public apologies, but the documentary shows he still feels a little guilty about how this drug conviction could have ruined the band’s ability to do performances outside of South Korea.

Earlier in his life, Kim overcame another major obstacle. In the documentary, he talks about when he was a teenager living in the United States, his dream was to become an American football player. However, after he dislocated his shoulder while playing football and had surgery, medical professionals told him that he could no longer play football. To cope with his disappointment, he started to listen to more music, which he said healed him emotionally and set him on a path to becoming a professional musician.

In a documentary interview, Park vividly remembers an experience in his busker days, when he took a risk and sang Jason Mraz’s 2005 song “A Beautiful Mess,” instead of better-known pop tune that would’ve gotten Park more audience donations. Park says he was so nervous to perform this song, he started singing it with his eyes closed, but when he opened his eyes, he saw about 30 people standing in front of him and enjoying his performance. Park says that was a moment when he learned to trust his musical instincts.

It’s a recurring theme in the movie: Artists staying true to themselves, even when when it’s easier to make money by following trends or when there are naysayers, critics and so-called “experts” telling the artists to do something that is not authentic. “The Rose: Come Back to Me” has the expected scenes of the band performing, rehearsing, writing songs and interacting with fans. But the movie’s biggest inspiration and takeway is that this band survived and thrived by not compromising who The Rose is.

Wavelength Productions will release “The Rose: Come Back to Me” in Los Angeles on August 8, 2025. CJ 4DPLEX will release the movie worldwide sometime in 2026.

Review: ‘Omniscient Reader: The Prophecy,’ starring Lee Min-ho, Ahn Hyo-seop, Chae Soo-bin, Shin Seung-ho, Nana and Jisoo

August 1, 2025

by Carla Hay

Pictured from left to right: Shin Seung-ho, Kwon Eun-seong, Ahn Hyo-seop, Chae Soo-bin and Nana in “Omniscient Reader: The Prophecy” (Photo courtesy of Capelight Pictures)

“Omniscient Reader: The Prophecy”

Directed by Kim Byung-woo

Korean with subtitles

Culture Representation: Taking place in an unnamed South Korean city, the sci-fi/fantasy/action film “Omniscient Reader: The Prophecy” (based on the web novel “Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint”) features an all-Asian cast of characters representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: A mild-mannered office worker in his 20s, who is very knowledgeable about an obscure web adventure novel, is the only person who can predict what happens when the novel comes to life, and people are expected to complete various challenges or die.

Culture Audience: “Omniscient Reader: The Prophecy” will appeal mainly to people who are fans of fantasy movies that look like video games, but viewers might be turned off by the movie’s messy and poorly conceived plot.

Ahn Hyo-seop and Lee Min-ho in “Omniscient Reader: The Prophecy” (Photo courtesy of Capelight Pictures)

“Omniscient Reader: The Prophecy” wants to be a clever sci-fi/fantasy film with meta references, but it’s incoherent and has drab characters. It’s about people trying to survive a terribly explained web novel that comes to life. The action is poorly staged.

Directed by Kim Byung-woo, “Omniscient Reader: The Prophecy” was co-written by Kim Byung-woo and Lee Jeong-min. The movie is based on Shing Shong’s 2018 web novel “Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint.” “Omniscient Reader: The Prophecy” was doomed to be a creative failure because it does not give viewers enough information about the web novel (“Three Ways to Survive the Apocalypse”) that’s at the center of the movie’s story.

Within the first 10 minutes of the movie, viewers are plunged into the erratic and tedious survival story that’s supposed to be based on “Three Ways to Survive the Apocalypse,” a web novel whose plot is known by movie’s protagonist. When this novel comes to life, the protagonist can predict certain things in advance, so then novel is supposed to be a “prophecy.” Certain main characters in “Omniscient Reader: The Prophecy” abruptly appear, disappear and re-appear, with no explanation. There’s a lot of exposition dumping in the movie’s dialogue, which still doesn’t answer a lot of questions.

The beginning of “Omniscient Reader: The Prophecy” (which takes place in an unnamed South Korean city) shows protagonist Kim Dokja (played by Ahn Hyo-seop), a mild-mannered loner in his 20s, who works in a boring office job in an unnamed industry. Dokja describes himself this way: “I went to a mediocre college and held mediocre jobs.” His current job is low-paying and temporary.

Dokja explains in a voiceover that he was an enthusiastic reader of the web novel “Three Ways to Survive the Apocalypse” (also known as “TWSA”), which started off as a very popular novel. However, as more of the novel’s chapters were released on the web. readership rapidly decreased because fans thought the novel was becoming too unrealistic. Dokja says he eventually became the only reader of “TWSA.”

At this point in the movie, these are the only two substantial things that are mentioned about “TWSA”: (1) It’s a story about an apocalypse where a mysterious force gave people challenges to complete, or else die if they don’t complete the challenges. (2) A coldly arrogant warrior named Yu Junghyeok is always the last survivor in “TWSA.”

One day, Dokja decides to send the author of “TWSA” an Internet message with this scathing criticism: “Why did you make Yu Junghyeok the last survivor? Sir, your novel is the worst.” To the surprise of Dokja, the author of “TWSA” responds to Dokja’s message by replying: “I’ll do a special epilogue based on reader submissions. If you don’t like the ending, write the one you want.”

Dokja receives this message on a subway train when he is standing next to a co-worker named Yoo Sangah (played by Chae Soo-bin), who is also in her 20s. Sangah has recently quit her job at the office because she got a better-paying job somewhere else. That’s about all you’ll find out about Sangah in this movie because the characters’ personalities are so underdeveloped.

Suddenly, the subway train stops on a bridge. There’s an announcement over a public-address system: “Planetary system 8612’s free service has ended. This is the start of paid content.”

An entity named Bihyeong suddenly appears. Bihyeong is best described as looking like a floating Teletubbie with devil horns. Bihyeong is a bizarre and annoying character that is both giggly and menacing.

Bihyeong announces that everyone on the subway must pass the Prove Your Worth Challenge, which requires everyone to kill a living organism on the train within 10 minutes. Anyone who doesn’t do so by the deadline will die. The passengers in the subway are in disbelief.

To prove that this challenge is serious, Bihyeong use a laser to zap a passenger on the train who objects to this challenge. Chaos then ensues. Fights break out on the train. Some men start beating and kicking a defenseless elderly woman.

Somehow, Dokja gets ahold of a portable ant farm and shouts to anyone who’ll listen that people don’t have to be killed in this challenge—only living organisms have to be killed. He suggests they kill the ants instead, but there aren’t enough ants for each passenger to kill. Dokja comes up with a last-minute solution to that problem.

Several people die anyway, and only 17 people survive this challenge. How did Dokja know about these loopholes? It’s because this Prove Your Worth Challenge is from the “TWSA” novel, but Dokja seems to be the only one on the train who knew in advance what to do.

The ant farm belonged to a boy on the subway named Lee Gilyoung (played by Kwon Eun-seong), who’s about 6 or 7 years old. It’s presumed that any adults who were traveling with Gilyoung have died. But the movie makes Gilyoung more upset that his ants died.

Dokja, Sangah and Gilyoung are three of the survivors who make it out of the subway train. Yu Junghyeok (played by Lee Min-ho) shows up on the bridge and fights a little with Dokja, but then Junghyeok goes away. Junghyeok disappears for long stretches of the movie and then reappears with no explanation.

Three more characters from the “TWSA” novel also come to life: a former soldier named Lee Hyunsung (played by Shin Seung-ho); a warrior named Jung Heewon (played by Nana); and Junghyeok’s loyal ally Lee Ji-hye (played by Jisoo). Hyunsung and Heewon decide to help Dokja, Sangah and Gilyoung. People who survive a challenge are given a certain number of coins that can be spent on extending the coin possessor’s life or getting a superpower. The movie is inconsistent in the rules and rewards of these challenges.

Fights with mythical beasts (such as dragons) further muddle the already convoluted story. The visual effects in “Omniscient Reader: The Prophecy” are substandard. The acting performances are adequate, but they can’t save this misguided film. By the end of “Omniscient Reader: The Prophecy” (which hints there could a sequel), viewers will be underwhelmed by the characters and possibly still confused by the story. Whatever the imaginary “TWSA” is all about is probably better than the tedious drag that is “Omniscient Reader: The Prophecy.”

Capelight Pictures released “Omniscient Reader: The Prophecy” in select U.S. cinemas on August 1, 2025.

Review: ‘A Normal Family,’ starring Sul Kyung-gu, Jang Dong-gun, Kim Hee-ae and Claudia Kim

April 26, 2025

by Carla Hay

Cast members of “A Normal Family.” Pictured in back row, from left to right: Jang Dong-gun, Kim Hee-ae, Claudia Kim and Sul Kyung-gu. Pictured in front row, from left to right: Kim Jung-chul, Byun Joong-hee and Hong Ye-ji. (Photo courtesy of Room 8 Films)

“A Normal Family”

Directed by Hur Jin-ho

Culture Representation: Taking place in South Korea, the dramatic film “A Normal Family” (based on the 2009 book “The Dinner”) features an all-Asian cast of characters representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: Two affluent brothers and their wives have their parental obligations and morality tested when they find out that two of their children have secretly committed a heinous crime.

Culture Audience: “A Normal Family” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners, the book on which the movie is based, and intense dramas about power, privilege and crime.

Pictured clockwise, from left: Sul Kyung-gu, Claudia Kim, Kim Hee-ae and Jang Dong-gun in “A Normal Family” (Photo courtesy of Room 8 Films)

Riveting and tension-filled, “A Normal Family” is a twisty drama that adds excellent cinematic layers to this superior adaptation of “The Dinner” book. The movie has absorbing performances in showing how family members react to their children’s crimes. There have been four separate movie adaptations of Herman Koch’s 2009 novel “The Dinner,” also known as its original Dutch title “Het Diner.” “A Normal Family” (the fourth movie adaptation of the book) is arguably the best movie version of the book so far.

Directed by Hur Jin-ho, “A Normal Family” was written by Park Eun-kyo and Park Joon-seok. The movie premiered at the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival and was released in South Korea in 2024. The previous movie adaptations of “The Dinner” had the same title as the book.

The first movie adaptation was a Dutch film directed by Menno Meyjes and released in 2013. The second movie adaptation was an Italian film directed by Ivano De Matteo and released in 2014. The third movie adaptation was an American film directed by Oren Moverman and released in 2017. In all three of these previous adaptations, the movies stuck to the original premise of making the movie focused on a long conversation between two couples during a dinner at an upscale restaurant.

“A Normal Family” admirably expands the world of the main characters by showing much more of their lives outside of a restaurant. The dinner conversations in “A Normal Family” are lynchpins to the story but do not get the most screen time because there are many other things that are shown in the movie that make the characters and their situations more complex. “A Normal Family’s” change to the story structure allows the characters to be more developed than in previous cinematic adaptations of “The Dinner” book.

“A Normal Family” begins by showing a road rage incident that turns into a tragedy. A man in his 20s named Hyung-cheol (played by Yoo Su-bin) gets into a confrontation with a man in his 30s (played by Yoo In-sun), whose last name is Yang, at an intersection on a busy street in an unnamed city in South Korea. The two men have a car collision and a very angry argument about who is at fault.

Mr. Yang, who is a professional baseball player, happens to have a baseball bat in his car. He stops the car, takes out the baseball bat and walks toward Hyung-cheol. Hyung-cheol’s response to so step on the accelerator and hit Mr. Yang head-on with the car. Mr. Yang dies almost immediately. He was in the car with his 8-year-old daughter Yang Na-rae, who is taken to a nearby hospital and goes into a coma.

This tragedy affects the lives of two very different middle-aged brothers in contrasting ways. Older brother Yang Jae-wan (played by Sul Kyung-gu) is a cunning and ruthless defense attorney, who is hired by Hyung-cheol’s wealthy father to defend Hyung-cheol, who could be charged with murder. Younger brother Yang Jae-gyu (played by Jang Dong-gun) is the hospital doctor who is supervising the medical care of Yang Na-rae. Jae-gyu is a compassionate doctor who makes people a priority over profits, sometimes to the detriment of his own career.

Na-rae’s distraught mother Seon Ju (played by Choi Ri) tells Jae-gyu that her deceased husband had the baseball bat in the car only because he was a professional baseball player, not because he used the bat as a weapon. She thinks that Hyung-cheol wrongly assumed that her husband was a thug. For now, Seon Ju is focused on her daughter recovering from the coma, but Seon Ju wants justice for her husband’s death.

Meanwhile, Jae-wan suggests to Hyung-cheol that his defense could be that Hyung-cheol thought Mr. Kang was going to kill Hyung-cheol with the bat, and Hyung-cheol “miscalculated” an attempt to swerve out of the way when Hyung-cheol hit Mr. Kang with the car. Jae-wan is fairly certain that the Kang family will accept a lucrative financial settlement from Hyung-cheol’s wealthy family in exchange for not pressing charges against Hyung-cheol.

Jae-wan also advises that the Kang family is more like to agree to an out-of-court settlement if Hyung-cheol makes a personal apology, but Hyung-cheol is reluctant to do that. Hyung-cheol says appearing apologetic in this case should be Jae-wan’s responsibility. The movie introduces this storyline about the road rage criminal case as a parallel comparison to what happens with the children of Jae-wan and Jae-gyu.

Jae-wan has two children, both daughters. His elder daughter is 17-year-old Hye-yoon (played by Hong Ye-ji), who was born from his marriage to his deceased first wife. Jae-wan’s second wife Ji-su (played by Claudia Kim) is about 20 years younger than Jae-wan. Ji-su has recently given birth to their baby daughter Sa-rang.

Hye-yoon is pretty and intelligent but also very spoiled, materialistic and selfish. It’s later revealed that Hye-yoon has applied to Cambridge University in England and is waiting to hear if she’s been accepted. The first time that Ji-su is seen in the movie, she’s exercising to lose weight that she gained from her pregnancy. It’s implied that she wants to stay thin because she knows she’s Jae-wan’s “trophy wife.” Clearly, this a household that places a lot importance on status and image.

Jae-gyu has one child with his older wife Lee Yeon-kyung (played by Kim Hee-ae), who has a brittle personality that masks deep insecurities. The couple’s 17-year-old son Yang Si-ho (played by Kim Jung-chul) has low self-esteem, partly because of his problems at school: He is often bullied by other students, and his academic grades are low enough where he could fail his last year in high school. The unnamed mother (played by Byun Joong-hee) of Jae-wan and Jae-gyu lives in Jae-gyu’s household, and she has dementia.

Jae-wan, Jae-gyu and their wives have a tradition of going on double dates at an upscale restaurant on a regular basis. Despite these family get-togethers, Jae-wan and Jae-gyu have had tensions in their brotherly relationship. Jae-wan thinks that it’s time for their mother to be put in a nursing home. Jae-gyu doesn’t like that idea, even though he admits that being a caregiver for a dementia patient has become overwhelming and stressful for the people in his household.

Jae-wan tells Jae-gyu that he found an ideal nursing home for their mother. The cost would be a $200,000 deposit and $6,000 a month. Jae-wan offers to pay only $1,000 of that $6,000 monthly cost. It’s an example of Jae-wan’s tendency to be inconsiderate. Jae-wan is also pretentious and often likes to show off his wealth.

There’s tension between the wives too. During one of the restaurant dinners, Yeon-kyung is very standoffish to Ji-su, who is trying to be friendly to Yeon-kyung. Yeon-kyung’s negative attitude toward Ji-su seems to be because Yeon-kyung is envious that Ji-su is younger and prettier than Yeon-kyung. When they are both in a ladies’ restroom, Ji-su tells Yeon-kyung that she would like them to be friends, but Yeon-kyung says no. Ji-su feels insulted and rejected, so for the rest of the evening, Ji-su makes not-so-subtle digs about Yeon-kyung being older, by calling Yeon-kyung “ma’am.”

Si-ho is being tutored by his cousin Hye-yoon to help Si-ho improve his academic grades. However, an early scene in the film shows that the two teens are also involved in some mischief. They have a secret social media account where Si-ho has uploaded a bootlegged “snuff” video of the road rage incident and the deadly results. Si-ho tells viewers he had to pay a lot of money to get the video, so they need to “like and subscribe.”

One night when the spouses are having dinner at a restaurant, Si-ho tags along on a date that Hye-yoon has with a slightly older teen named Jaeden (played by Park Sang Hoon), who is a student at the University of California at Los Angeles. The three teens go to a house party where there’s no adult supervision. Si-ho gives in to peer pressure to drink liquor, and he quickly gets drunk.

Si-ho then sees Hye-yoon and Jaeden making out at the party, while no one is paying attention to Si-ho. Feeling like a drunk outsider, Si-ho gets angry and storms out of the party. He ends up in a nearby alley where there are trash cans. He starts throwing things around and is soon joined by Hye-yoon, who followed him.

What happens in that alley takes a horrific turn, as the teenagers’ parents find out later. As already revealed the trailer for “A Normal Family,” Si-ho and Hye-yoon didn’t know that there was a surveillance camera that filmed what took place in the alley that night. Si-ho and Hye-yoon saw a homeless man in the alley and viciously kicked him and beat him up and then dragged him into a dark corner.

The homeless man is now in a coma at the same hospital where Jae-gyu works. And the surveillance video is all over the local news and has gone viral on the Internet. The faces of the two assailants are not clearly seen in the video. Yeon-kyung is the first of the parents to see the video and immediately sees that Si-ho is one of the attackers because she recognizes a shirt that he is wearing.

What happens during the rest of “A Normal Family” shows how the parents and the teenagers handle this troubling situation. The movie goes beyond a dinner conversation in one location by depicting how the weight of this crime affects the everyday lives of the people who know who committed the crime. Not everything is clear-cut and predictable. It’s enough to say that some people change their motives and opinions, while others do not.

“A Normal Family” has very good acting from all the principal cast members, with standout performances from the cast members who portray the parents. This movie does not pass judgment on decisions that certain people make. Instead, the entire movie is an effective observation about how definitions of loyalty and betrayal can differ, depending on the individuals and circumstances. It’s also a disturbing look at how far some people are willing to go to preserve a family name and reputation to fit the image of “a normal family.”

Room 8 Films released “A Normal Family” in select U.S. cinemas on April 25, 2025. The movie was released in South Korea on October 9, 2024.

Review: ‘Dark Nuns,’ starring Song Hye-kyo, Jeon Yeo-been, Lee Jin-wook, Moon Woo-jin and Huh Joon-ho

February 26, 2025

by Carla Hay

Song Hye-kyo in “Dark Nuns” (Photo courtesy of Well Go USA)

“Dark Nuns”

Directed by Kwon Hyeok-jae

Culture Representation: Taking place in South Korea, the horror film “Dark Nuns” (a spinoff to the 2015 movie “The Priests”) features a predominantly white cast of Asian characters (with one white person) representing the working-class and middle-class.

Culture Clash: A nun with a troubled past tries to break into the male-dominated world of exorcists and wants to save an adolescent boy who is apparently possessed by a demon.

Culture Audience: “Dark Nuns” will appeal mainly to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners and generic horror movies about exorcisms.

Lee Jin-wook in “Dark Nuns” (Photo courtesy of Well Go USA)

Considering the numerous exorcism horror movies that already exist, “Dark Nuns” doesn’t do enough to stand out from the pack. The visual terror setups in the movie are better than the mostly underwhelming results. Although the performances in “Dark Nuns” are adequate, the story is muddled, clichéd and often very dull.

Directed by Kwon Hyeok-jae, “Dark Nuns” was written by Hyo-jin Oh and Kim Woo-Jin. The movie takes place in an unnamed city in South Korea and is a spinoff to the 2015 South Korean film “The Priests,” starring Kim Yoon-seok and Gang Dong-won as exorcist priests. “Dark Nuns” begins by showing an exorcism scene where a boy named Choi Hee-joon (played by Moon Woo-jin), who is about 12 or 13 years old, is getting an exorcism done inside a church. He is tied to a wheelchair as he does the usual writhing around and hissing that possessed people do in exorcism movies.

Suddenly, a nun named Sister Giunia (played by Song Hye-kyo) bursts into the church and announces that she’s from the Liberation Order. She’s walking quickly as she carries a gas carton. Is she going to set something on fire with gas? No.

The gas carton is filled with holy water, which Sister Giunia pours on Hee-joon. She then says to the demon that she thinks has possessed Hee-joon: “You coward, taking a child’s body.”

Hee-joon is taken to a hospital, where he is put under the care of Father Paolo (played by Lee Jin-wook), who is a priest/psychiatrist. Father Paolo thinks that Hee-joon is probably mentally ill, and there could probably be a scientific/medical way to treat him. Hee-joon’s single mother keeps a vigilant watch over him.

Father Paolo is annoyed when he hears that Sister Giunia tried to perform an exorcism on Hee-joon. For starters, Father Paolo thinks the Liberation Order is a group of phony exorcists. He believes only ordained priests in Rosicrucianism can do exorcisms. Father Paolo also sternly lectures Sister Giunia by saying that he thinks Hee-joon could be faking his mental illness to cope with the bullying that Hee-joon gets at Hee-joon’s school.

The rest of the movie is essentially about Sister Giunia trying to prove that Hee-joon really is possessed by a demon and that she can legitimately get rid of the demon by performing an exorcism on him. Sister Giunia gets help from another nun named Sister Michaela (played by Jeon Yeo-been), who basically has a sidekick role in the story. Father Paolo might or might not change his opinions of Sister Giunia, but you can still easily predict Father Paolo’s story arc.

“Dark Nuns” has flashbacks to Sister Giunia’s troubled childhood, when she was orphaned at a young age. Her birth name was Kang Sung-ae. And ever since she was a little girl, she felt she was cursed. It didn’t help that when she was a child, she found a female friend hanging from a rope in an apparent suicide.

Sister Giunia has a contradictory personality: She’s determined about the future, very insecure about her past, and somewhat of blank void when it comes to the present. Even with all the flashbacks and nightmarish visions that she has in the movie, viewers will still feel like Sister Giunia is a big mystery

Other characters in the movie are three other exorcists: Father Andrea (played by Huh Joon-ho) is another priest. Hyo-won (played by Kim Gook-hee) is a rare female shaman. Ae-dong (played by Shin Jae-hwi), who was mentored by Hyo-won, stutters when he talks, but his stutter goes away when he is saying things as part of the exorcism rituals.

“Dark Nuns” mishandles the backstory of Sister Giunia by making it too vague. The flashbacks are very atmospheric, but they have no real substance and leave too many questions unanswered. Likewise, the demon’s origins are hurriedly rushed into the story when someone finds—horror movie cliché alert—an old book with ancient myths to indicate that the demon has been around for centuries. (Aren’t they all, in horror movies like this one?)

“Dark Nuns” has probably one of the most drawn-out and long-winded exorcism showdown scenes you’ll ever see, where there is too much time wasted on showing the preparation of the exorcism and then tedious scenes of Hee-joon talking like a demon. The makeup and visual effects are compentent, but a lot of “Dark Nuns” isn’t as scary as it could be.

One of the biggest flaws in the movie is that not enough is told about Hee-joon and how he could’ve ended up possessed by a demon. “Dark Nuns” also does not completely convince viewers that Sister Giunia truly cares about Hee-joon as a person, or if she just sees Hee-joon as a convenient opportunity to prove that she’s just as capable and worthy to be an exorcist as the men who dominate the exorcist profession.

Almost every exorcism movie has a big showdown scene, which is supposed to be the highlght of the film. In “Dark Nuns,” this showdown scene turns into a nonsensical mess. Without giving away too many details, one of the main characters does something that is supposed to be surprising and tragic, but it actually doesn’t ring true as something this character would do, considering what the rest of the movie showed about this character. “Dark Nuns” has all the visual elements of being an entertaining horror movie but it’s ultimately let down by an uninspired and clumsily constructed story.

Well Go USA released “Dark Nuns” in select U.S. cinemas on February 7, 2025. The movie will be released on digital and VOD on July 15, 2025. The movie was released in South Korea on January 24, 2025.

Review: ‘A Traveler’s Needs,’ starring Isabelle Huppert

November 25, 2024

by Carla Hay

Isabelle Huppert and Kim Seung-yun in “A Traveler’s Needs” (Photo courtesy of The Cinema Guild)

“A Traveler’s Needs”

Directed by Hong Sang-soo

Korean, French and English with subtitles

Culture Representation: Taking place in Seoul, South Korea, the comedy/drama film “A Traveler’s Needs” features a predominantly Asian cast of characters (with one white person) representing the working-class and middle-class.

Culture Clash: A French woman, who has recently immigrated to South Korea, starts working as a private French-language tutor with unconventional teaching methods.

Culture Audience: “A Traveler’s Needs” will appeal mainly to people who are fans of star Isabelle Huppert, filmmaker Hong Sang-soo, and talkative movies with arthouse sensibilities.

Kwon Hae-hyo, Isabelle Huppert and Lee Hye-young in “A Traveler’s Needs” (Photo courtesy of The Cinema Guild)

The comedy/drama “A Traveler’s Needs” offers a unique slice-of-life story of an unorthodox French-language tutor in South Korea. It’s best enjoyed by viewers who appreciate dialogue-driven movies in ordinary realistic settings. Everyone else will be bored.

Written and directed by Hong Sang-soo, “A Traveler’s Needs” had its world premiere at the 2024 Berlin International Film Festival, where it won the Grand Jury’s Silver Bear prize, the equivalent of second place for Best Picture. “A Traveler’s Needs” also screened at he 2024 New York Film Festival. “A Traveler’s Needs” is the third Hong Sang-soo movie to star Isabelle Huppert, after 2012’s “In Another Country” and 2017’s “Claire’s Camera.”

“A Traveler’s Needs” consists entirely of conversations in a very limited number of settings, usually in someone’s home or in a park. The movie’s protagonist Iris (played by Huppert) doesn’t say too much about herself. However, from conversations in the movie, viewers find out that Iris has recently moved to Seoul, South Korea, from her native France. She also has a fondness for drinking makgeolli, which is Korean rice wine.

Iris has recently decided to become a private tutor teaching the French language. Her first clients are affluent—not ultra-wealthy but upper-middle-clas. “A Traveler’s Needs” shows her meeting with two of these clients for the first time. Most of the characters in the movie are not identified by their names, but they offer glimpses into their lives in the time that Iris spends with them.

First, Iris is seen meeting with a woman in her 20s (played by Kim Seung-yun) in the student’s home. While they are talking, the student suddenly gets up to play the piano. When she’s finished, Iris asks the student what she felt when playing the piano.

The student replies, “I felt happy.” But Iris asks more probing questions until the student admits she wishes she were a better piano player. Iris takes notes on index cards and translates in French what the student said about her feelings. The movie soon reveals that this is how Iris wants to teach French.

At a nearby park, the student shows Iris a stone monument that has her father’s name on it. The student tells Iris that her father’s name is only the monument because he donated a large sum of money. The student says she’s a little embarrassed about it, but she tearfully adds, “He loved me very much.”

Next, Iris meets with an outspoken woman in her early 60s (played by Lee Hye-young), who is a CEO of an unnamed major company. Her mild-mannered and quiet husband (played by Kwon Hae-hyo), who has a flirtatious side, is not the one taking the French lessons, but he is her constant companion during this teaching session. The husband eventually reveals that he is an attorney who quit his law practice to become the “right-hand man” for his wife in her business.

These two spouses have a young adult daughter (played by Kang So-yi), who lives with them. According to the mother, this daughter quit her job about a year ago and is still looking for another job. The daughter doesn’t have any specific career goals in mind, just some “ideas.” The mother doesn’t seem to be too bothered by her daughter’s aimlessness.

The daughter also acts aloof when her mother asks her to come over and say hello in French to Iris. Even though this daughter took French for three years in high school, the daughter claims not to remember any French at all. Viewers are left to ponder what this family is really like behind closed doors, when there are no strangers who are visiting. These are questions that the movie doesn’t answer.

The CEO student is surprised and disappointed that Iris will not be teaching French by using textbooks but will be using index cards instead. This student also plays an instrument. During this session, she plays an acoustic guitar, but Iris excuses herself to go up on the couple’s rooftop lounge area to smoke a cigarette while the student plays the guitar. The spouses later joins Iris on the rooftop to smoke cigarettes too.

Iris asks the CEO student how she felt when she played the guitar. The student says she felt happy, But once agan, Iris prods the student for a more introspective answer, until the student admits she felt a little proud and a little annoyed because she likes her guitar playing but doesn’t feel she’s a “good-enough” guitar player to be at the playing skills that she wants. Iris did the same thing she did with the other student: She writes down those feelings in French and tells her student to memorize this translation.

Iris eventually admits to the couple that she has no training to be a French-language teacher and she’s trying a non-traditional way of teaching. Iris’ line of questioning sounds more like something a therapist would ask. It becomes obvious to observant viewers that Iris’ method of teaching is to get her students to express how they feel, and Iris then translates those feelings, with the intent being that her students are more likely to learn French if they learn sentences that are personally relatable to them.

And who exactly is Iris? It’s a mystery that “A Traveler’s Needs” doesn’t quite answer. But some clues emerge when Iris is seen with the person who knows her best in South Korea: her platonic roommate Inguk (played by Ha Seong-guk), an ntroveted, aspiring poet who is in his 20s. It’s eventually revealed that Inguk invited unemployed Iris live with him rent-free at his apartment until she could get a job. He was the one who referred her to her French-lesson clients when she decided to make money as a French-language tutor.

Through conversations in the movie, viewers find out that Inguk met Iris randomly in a park, where he saw her playing a recorder musical instrument. (This meeting is shown in a pivotal flashback scene.) Iris wasn’t very good at playing this instrument, but Ingkuk was intrigued by her, and they struck up a conversation. There’s no sexual attracton between Iris and Inguk, but they are clearly charmed by each other.

After they became roommates, Inguk tells Iris: “You are so bright and talented.” Iris later tells Inguk: “No matter what happens, don’t give up your poetry.” Iris is paid in cash (₩200,000, which is about $143 in U.S. dollars in the mid-2020s) for her first day as a French-language tutor. She insists on giving all of the cash to Ingkuk, who has set ₩500,000, or $356 in U.S. dollars, for Iris’ share of the rent.

Inguk is afraid to tell his domineering and overprotective mother (played by Cho Yun-hee, also known as Jo Yoon-hee) about Iris being his roommate. And so, when Inguk’s mother shows up at the apartment for an unannounced visit, some low-stakes hijinks occur that won’t be detailed in this review. It’s enough to say that after Inguk’s mother makes her appearance, it starts to make sense that he emotionally gravitates to Iris, who is the empathetic mother figure whom Inguk doesn’t have with his own mother.

Because “A Traveler’s Needs” doesn’t tell a lot about Iris’ background and just shows her having conversations with people, some viewers might find it hard to connect with this movie. “A Traveler’s Needs” is by no means a masterpiece, but it invites viewers to speculate about what circumstances led Iris to move to Seoul without a job and without knowing anyone. Iris’ unconventional way of teaching already indicates that she is someone who doesn’t want to live a conventional life.

Huppert gives a very intriguing performance as “go with the flow” Iris, while Cho has a likeable screen presence as the shy and socially awkward Inguk. It’s perhaps no coincidence that these two unlikely roommates are the only two characters who have names in the movie. Ultimately, “A Traveler’s Needs” (in its very understated way) shows the impact of finding and appreciating human connections, whether people are living in a country that is familiar or unfamiliar to them.

The Cinema Guild released “A Traveler’s Needs” in select U.S. cinemas on November 22, 2024.

Review: ‘Pilot’ (2024), starring Jo Jung-suk, Lee Ju-myoung, Han Sun-hwa and Shin Seung-ho

August 14, 2024

by Carla Hay

Jo Jung-suk in “Pilot” (Photo courtesy of Lotte Entertainment)

“Pilot” (2024)

Directed by Kim Han-gyul

Culture Representation: Taking place in 2023 and 2024, in South Korea, the comedy film “Pilot” features a nearly all-Asian cast of characters (with one white person) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: A disgraced hotshot pilot, who’s been blacklisted from the airline industry, pretends to be a woman when he finds out that an airline is recruiting female pilots. 

Culture Audience: “Pilot” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners and comedies about gender swapping.

Jo Jung-suk in “Pilot” (Photo courtesy of Lotte Entertainment)

The breezy comedy “Pilot” has similarities to the 1982 film “Tootsie,” but Pilot has updated themes that demonstrate the role that social media can play in shaping public images. Even with its amusing moments, “Pilot” has a lot to say about gender stereotypes. There are some scenes that require a suspension of disbelief, but they are explained in a way that’s fairly reasonable in the context of the story, which still has a few plot holes.

Directed by Kim Han-gyul and written by Jo Yoo-jin, “Pilot” takes place in 2023 and 2024, in unnamed cities in South Korea, although it can be assumed that much of what happens is in Seoul. The movie’s opening scene shows what appears to be a female airline employee running frantically through a busy city street while being chased by dozens of people. Who is this person? And why are so many people chasing this person?

The first two-thirds of the movie explain what happened before circling back to this scene in the last third of the movie. The protagonist of “Pilot” is Han Jung-woo (played by Jo Jung-suk), a hotshot pilot with Hankuk Air, a leading South Korean airline company. In 2023, Jung-woo is 31 years old and a star employee on the rise who has recently been promoted from co-pilot to captain. He does TV interviews on behalf of Hankuk Air, which treats him like a celebrity, because Jung-woo is featured in Hankuk Air’s advertisements.

At first glance, Jung-woo seems to have it all: He has a lovely wife named Soo-young (played by Kim Ji-hyun) and an adorable 6-year-old son named Si-hoo. Jung-woo’s career is thriving. He has the respect and admiration of many people. Soo-young, a dancer who teaches ballet to children, is also doing well in her job. What could possibly go wrong?

But things go terribly wrong. Jung-woo has become arrogant. He has a dismissive and sexist attitude toward women in the airline industry. One day, at a company meeting, Jung-woo stands up and loudly compares flight attendants to bouquets of flowers that can wilt. His misogynistic comment is controversial and causes public outrage.

Jung-woo’s comment comes during a rough time for Hankuk Air. The company is experiencing a power struggle between the two siblings who are set to inherit the company. Noh Jeong-wook (played by Hyun Bong-sik) is the vice president who takes credit for the hard work and innovative ideas of his older sister Noh Moon-young (played by Seo Jae-hee), who is the director of the company.

Due to Noh Jeong-wook’s mismanagement, the company’s stocks are plunging. Staff cuts are made. Jung-woo is one of the people who is fired, mostly because of his sexist remarks that he said in public. As a result of the scandal. Jung-woo has problems finding a job at another airline. He eventually finds out that he’s been blacklisted.

Things go from bad to worse for Jung-woo. Shortly after he gets fired, Soo-young tells Jung-woo that she wants a divorce and that she’s been thinking about ending their marriage for quite some time, long before he got fired. Soo-young later tells Jung-woo she doesn’t want to be married to him anymore because he’s become too self-absorbed. In their quickie divorce, Jung-woo loses custody of Si-hoo, but Jung-woo gets unsupervised visitation rights.

Because of the divorce, Jung-woo needs a new place to live. He moves back in to the apartment that he bought for his widowed mother Kim An-ja (played by Oh Min-ae) and younger sister Han Jung-mi (played by Han Sun-hwa), who live together. Jung-woo is still paying the mortgage for the apartment, but he’s too ashamed to tell his mother that he got fired from his job. Jung-woo feels obligated to continue to give this financial support to his mother and sister because he’s grateful that they helped raise him when he was younger.

Jung-woo is dismayed and embarrassed to find out that getting too caught up in his hotshot pilot job has come at an emotional cost: His mother has become an obsessive fan of pop star Lee Chan-won (playing a version of himself) and has decorated the apartment’s spare bedroom with posters of Lee Chan-won. Jung-mi tells Jung-woo that their mother thinks of Lee Chan-won as her “new son” because Jung-woo has been neglecting his family.

During his job search, Jung-woo applies for a job at Han Air, which is owned by the same company that owns Hankuk Air. Noh Moon-young is on a panel of people interviewing Jung-woo, who is rejected. A Han Air pilot named Seo Hyun-seok (played by Shin Seung-ho), who is 35 years old and is a jealous rival of Jung-woo, tells Jung-woo that Han Air is giving hiring preference to female pilots. It’s implied that this gender preference is a public-relations move to make up for the scandal that Jung-woo caused with his misogynistic comments.

A dejected Jung-woo goes home and tries to figure out his next career move. Jung-mi is an ASMR beauty influencer who does videos for an unnamed social media platform. One day, Jung-woo gets a call for a job interview as a pilot for Han Air. Jung-mi is shocked to find out that Jung-woo used her name on the job application. Jung-woo then asks for Jung-mi’s help to make him look like a woman for this job interview.

At first, Jung-mi refuses to do it. But then, Jung-woo reminds her that he needs to make enough money to continue paying for their home’s mortgage. He tells her if he can’t pay the mortgage, they’ll lose their home. Jung-mi quickly changes her mind and agrees to help. She also promises her brother that she will keep this gender deception a secret.

The rest of “Pilot” has plot points that are a lot like “Tootsie,” the Oscar-winning film starring Dustin Hoffman as a blacklisted actor who pretends to be a woman to get a role on a TV soap opera, he becomes a popular star of the show, and he ends up falling for a female co-star (played by Jessica Lange), who doesn’t know his true gender identity. The main difference in both movies (beside the jobs of the protagonists) is that the protagonist in “Tootsie” is a never-married bachelor with no family, whereas the protagonist in “Pilot” is a divorcé with a family.

Jung-woo uses his sister Jung-mi’s name, and he dresses like a woman when he goes to the Han Air interview, where Noh Moon-young is once again the leader of the interview panel. Several uncomfortable interactions ensue as he awkwardly adjusts to presenting himself as a woman. Despite a few mishaps, Jung-woo (pretending to be a woman) quickly gets hired by Han Air.

There are some glaring plot holes that are addressed later in the movie, such as how Jung-woo was able to get hired using a fake name and by misrepresenting his gender. Some of the comedy in the movie is about Jung-woo (dressed as Jung-mi) trying to prevent Hyun-seok from recognizing him as Jung-woo. That’s explained because Hyun-seok was a casual acquaintance of Jung-woo and is too narcissistic to notice the physical resemblance between Jung-woo and the newly hired Jung-mi.

As already revealed in the trailer for “Pilot,” the fake Jung-mi eventually becomes a star employee and a social media sensation after saving 215 passengers from a plane crash. Jung-woo’s mother An-ja becomes a big fan. How could An-ja not notice that this female celebrity pilot has the same name as her daughter and looks a lot like her son? The movie has an explanation for that too.

Meanwhile, cocky Hyun-seok becomes attracted to his new co-worker Jung-Mi, whom he thinks is a woman. Jung-woo becomes attracted to female co-worker who doesn’t know that new employee Jung-Mi is really a man named Jung-woo. Jung-woo’s love interest is a career-oriented pilot named Yoon Seul-gi (played by Lee Ju-myoung), who has the same ambition of being promoted to captain. Seul-gi and the fake Jung-Mi become very close and spend time together outside of work.

Seul-gi thinks of “Jung-Mi” as a sister. Jung-woo, who can’t tell Seul-gi that he’s really a man, wants more than a friendship with her. During a “girls’ night out,” Jung-woo (as Jung-Mi) tells Seul-gi that he knows many men whom he could introduce to Seul-gi as potential boyfriends. He asks Seul-gi what type of man is her ideal man. Seul-gi says her ideal man is someone who can understand how much she loves her job and someone who doesn’t lie to her. Uh-oh.

“Pilot” has some expected slapstick comedy moments about the lengths that Jung-woo goes to keep his secret and keep up the charade. The cast members’ talent and very good comedic timing are the reasons why some of these moments are laugh-out-loud funny instead of cringeworthy. Jo’s gender-swapping performance is entertaning to watch, even if “Pilot” is nowhere near a classic movie like “Tootsie” that’s worthy of several Oscar nominations.

The most ridiculous part of “Pilot” is the plane crash scene, which has cheat editing. One minute, the plane suddenly catches on fire. Jung-woo (as Jung-Mi) and Hyun-seok are piloting the plane, but Hyun-seok panics, and Jung-woo (as Jung-Mi) takes over flying the plane. A few minutes later, Jung-woo (as Jung-Mi) wakes up in a hospital. The movie completely skips over showing how the plane landed.

Despite some obvious flaws, “Pilot” doesn’t take itself too seriously—and neither should viewers. The movie could have taken a completely sappy direction in showing the outcome of one particular problem, but “Pilot” instead shows a realistic outcome. That’s not to say that “Pilot” is entirely realistic, but it does have some clever moments that show how a man can learn to better appreciate and understand women if he had to live for a period of time as a woman.

Lotte Entertainment released “Pilot” in select U.S. cinemas on August 9, 2024.

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