Retour à Séoul / Return to Seoul (2022) – 3/5

Succeeds with realism rather than likable characters

„Retour à Séoul“ or „Return to Seoul“ is a relatively new live action film and a co-production between a total of seven countries, so really a lot and France and especially South Korea are the defining one, even if the latter is not listed in the first spots there. France is credited first though. I am also a bit surprised that Germany is among those countries as I (as somebody who is actually from Germany) did not see German aspects in here whatsoever. There is a great deal of English included as well, so unless you are a huge language talent, you will surely need subtitles for English, French or Korean. The film makes it relatively close to the two-hour mark if we count credits as well. Without those, it is at approximately 110 minutes. In terms of writing and direction, it is a one-person effort by Davy Chou. He is approximately my age, slightly older, turns 40 this year, but looks younger I would say, so we will see what he has in store the next couple years. Given the really solid awards recognition, also in America, for this one here, it is surely possible that he will be in charge of a Hollywood film at some point in the near future. His defining area of profession in the past was the production of films, but for over a decade now he is shooting his own movies. With quite some success. I can’t go a whole lot into detail about the cast here because I am not familiar with the actors. Just a few words on some of the key players: Park Ji-min I have never seen in anything else because this is her very first performance in a film apparently. Really big role as she is in almost every scene. If she only played herself here pretty much, what I suspect, we will find out when we see more from her. Given this film’s accolades, we surely will. She had a hard time in winning me over though, perhaps because I did not find her character likable at all. But surely Chou was playing a bit there with how we see her in this film, especially when he eventually gives the character a job in arms trading.

One of the biggest supporting players here is Oh Kwang-rok and he was in the famous „Oldboy“ too. His role there was not big, but here he showed us that he can come up with something interesting when given the chance to. Guka Han played a very likable character from the movie. A bit of a pity she was gone so quickly. I would watch a film about her character. Hur Ouk-Sook may be old already, but for her, just like for Han, it was also a debut. Many rookies in this movie in front of the camera, but they are proof that experience does not equal talent. I liked them. Kim Sun-young is among the most experienced cast members, especially if we look at her massive awards recognition over the years. I would say that nobody really stood out and we should not mistake quantity for quality here in terms of the lead actress. One thing that caught my attention in this movie were the jumps ahead in time, especially in the second half and at the end we are in the now as you can see from the pandemic masks. I mean one happens a lot in films, maybe a second one, but here three or four and each over the course of several years, that was an exception. I guess it was needed to get in all the story. The best example is the protagonist’s longing to have contact with her biological mother. This was really the only moment when she started crying because she waited so long for this special encounter. You can see it maybe as a bit depressing how things turned out in that area. In a perfect world, they would be really close after the meeting, but here not so much. When the young woman writes an email to her mother after quite some time, the email does not reach its destination. One possibility is that she misspelled and another is that the mother changed her provider, but the most depressing explanation is that the mother gave her daughter a fictitious mailbox because she did not want to stay in touch with her and also did not want to tell her this pretty hurtful truth. We cannot say for sure, but the fact that the mother needed half a decade or so almost until she agreed to meet her daughter in person is quite an indicator.

On the father’s side, things look rocky for other reasons. He is immediately eager to see his daughter, spend time with her, introduce her to his family, including her grandmother and her half-sisters and the two grown-ups beg for forgiveness there, but it gets too much because the father already talks about the young woman to stay and live with them and even talks about how he will find a suitable Korean man for her. Oh well, this was so absurd, it was one of the funniest moments of the film almost. About as absurd as the guy she had sex with once speaking about great romance when she felt no such thing. She was quite hurtful there. Actually, she keeps hurting everybody around her. I guess, you can in a way explain this because of the emotional challenges waiting for her in Korea, but it was just too much there and this is also why I do not like her. The young man I just mentioned she hurts, she wants to insult her father (she never would have done so with her mother), she also manages to lose contact to Guka Han’s character because of the kiss moment. Could be an indicator that said character is lesbian and the protagonist played with her feelings. In any case, it was pretty absurd because Han’s character really supported her since day one. Made the call to her dad, accompanied her to see him etc. And finally, the protagonist also managed to hurt her non-biological parents in France when she decided spontaneously to travel to Korea on her own after they had a deal that all three of them will go together one day. The woman may be headstrong, but she is also quite immature and not capable of understanding how she hurts others because she fails to put herself in their position.

Back to her father, he is not just too clingy, but also his alcoholism comes into play there and one has to do with the other because all the messages he sent to her happened when he was drunk. There seems improvement towards the end as we are told that he is having his addiction under control, but the scene at the restaurant makes it unclear. He is drinking alcohol there, which he would not have if he is indeed 100% sober, and even drinks quite a lot. The situation may be the biggest challenge for him as on the one hand he wants to see his daughter, on the other hand he can’t approve of her life(style) choices. Look at how he speaks about the DJ guy that the main character is about to go home with earlier. So what can he do? He wants to be close to his daughter, but on the other hand, it eats him up. Almost impossible to find a satisfying solution there. Maybe this is indeed why the main character also stays away from him. No huge distance between them, but, despite this proximity, she has not seen or visited him in years. If we talk about some other aspects, it can be said that the music was fairly solid. The atmospheric take I liked as well. The film reminded me a bit of a rougher version of „The Farewell“, an even bigger awards player. The lead actress here, in terms of all her mannerisms and approach to the role, reminded me of Awkwafina too. A few words on the ending: There we have the woman play the piano a little bit and we understand where this gene came from. From her father of course. The latter gave her a little piece he composed himself. I am not sure if this was what she played there, but maybe so. This closure scene then happens right after she finds out her mother’s email address is not working, but she does not start sobbing and instead focuses on her father. Maybe she needed this to understand that there will never be an intimate relationship with her mother. Maybe she also does not need it anymore after.

During the restaurant scene with the father, you can see that there’s this moment when people pour each other’s drinks and it is a custom in Korea not to do so yourself. An act of courtesy. At the very start, she does not care at all and thinks it is stupid, but in the end she has changed in a way where she is no longer against these traditions. At least not strictly. It feels as if she has come to accept the two identities inside her. Of course, living in the country where she was born had a massive impact. As for her French side, it was funny early on to see how she is so extroverted and open-minded and she gets everybody in touch with everybody else and maybe romantic relationships result from her breaking the ice there, something the rather shy and distant Koreans never might have done on their own. So yeah, it is all a character study for the protagonist here. Already wild dancing scenes have a lasting impact. There are many other inclusions I could talk about, but I will leave it at that. And also many beautiful women I could talk about like the one from the center towards the end who established contact between the protagonist and her mother. One thing I can say though, unrelated to that, is that I am glad that the French and Koreans are not scared of unjustified racism accusations and that the scene when they say her face is typically Korean or joking about „Paris Baguette“ did make it into the final cut of this film. Here in Germany, those scenes might have been left out. Sacrificing creativity in order to make sure not to offend anybody is common procedure here. In this film it is not and I was sure from the very start that I would give a thumbs-up here. I am glad I got to watch this. It’s not outstanding or one of my favorites from 2022, but with the positive recommendation I give it, I think you should give the film a chance too, even if it is a bit depressing at times and on so many occasions could have resulted into a full-on happy ending like the father’s alleged recovery, the moment she meets her mother etc., but this is not what Chou wanted. He wanted authenticity and he got it. Go see his work here.