Slant Magazine by Chris Barsanti
Davy Chou’s Return to Seoul quickly blooms as a study in contrasts, sublimely juxtaposing character and culture.
✭ ✭ ✭ ✭ Read critic reviews
France, Germany, Belgium · 2022
1h 59m
Director Davy Chou
Starring Park Ji-min, Oh Gwang-rok, Guka Han, Kim Sun-young
Genre Drama
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Wanting to reconnect with her origins, 25-year-old Freddie impulsively returns to her birthplace of South Korea for the first time since she was adopted and raised in France. Freddie begins to track down her biological parents, embarking on an unexpected journey in a country she knows little about.
Slant Magazine by Chris Barsanti
Davy Chou’s Return to Seoul quickly blooms as a study in contrasts, sublimely juxtaposing character and culture.
It’s the rare movie that can drop a long-take dance sequence into the middle of a pressing conversation without seeming the least bit mannered or aloof; the rare movie that only feels more honest as a result of its most flamboyant choices, and only makes its heroine more empathetic as a result of how she pushes other people away.
While Chou’s elliptical screenplay gently explodes many preconceived assumptions about the effects of adoption on adoptees, it is too clear-sighted to ignore the fact that whether biology affects identity or not, the mere possibility that such a link exists could exert a powerful attraction on a searching spirit not quite sure what it is searching for.
The Hollywood Reporter by Sheri Linden
That the story of someone so off-putting climaxes in a moment as profound and moving as the penultimate scene of Return to Seoul speaks to the subtle power of writer-director Davy Chou’s storytelling and the portrayal by Park Ji-Min, a visual artist making a strong impression in her first screen role.
Like its central character, this film is unconventional, and at times abrasive, but it has a seductive, searching quality and a swell of melancholy which makes for an engaging, if unpredictable journey.
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