First Reactions: Cineplay Critics’ Star Rating for 〈HANA KOREA〉

It feels unfamiliar. At times it resembles a Nordic film, but Kim Min Ha and the city of Seoul are always present, and the film is about North Korean defectors. With its static mise-en-scène and restrained emotional arc, the film becomes an even more dramatic, unexpectedly hip story about a divided Korea. Though directed by a Danish filmmaker, it never reduces its North Korean defector protagonist to an outsider. Rather than indulging in pity or sentimentality, the film dryly traces the emotional changes a defector experiences after settling in Seoul. From the first flutter of excitement upon resettling to the empty, cold side of Seoul that lies behind the illusions of K-dramas, it tells a familiar story in the most unfamiliar way.