Lee Joon-ik’s “Father’s Home-Cooked Meals” Hits the Big Screen With a 2-Hour-36-Minute Run Time?—It’s a Short-Drama

156-minute bold lineup with a vertical screen—Lotte Cinema to open exclusively next month on the 9th

“Director Lee Joon-ik”‘s first “short drama” “Father’s Home-Cooked Meals” will be officially screened in theaters for the first time in the history of domestic video content. The film is drawing intense attention from inside and outside the movie industry as it sticks to a “vertical screen” optimized for mobile environments and, despite that, unveils a striking running time of 2 hours and 36 minutes.

“Resin Entertainment” said in an official announcement on the 13th that “Father’s Home-Cooked Meals,” based on its namesake webtoon on its platform “Resin Snack,” will be “released exclusively” at “Lotte Cinema” starting next month on the 9th. It’s an unprecedentedly innovative move—having “short-form content,” which until now has been consumed on mobile devices like a snack with brief bursts, directly meet audiences through a large theater screen.

The story focuses in depth on the daily cracks and reflection that begin when a wife, Soon-ae (played by Lee Jeong-eun), who devoted her whole life to please her rigid, patriarchal husband, Haeung (played by Jung Jin-young), loses her cooking know-how after an unexpected accident. Led by veteran performers “Jung Jin-young” and “Lee Jeong-eun,” the cast also includes “Byun Yo-han” and “Park Ji-yeon,” among others—actors who have long showcased overwhelming presence by moving seamlessly between the big screen and the small screen, raising the work’s overall density even further.

In particular, this theatrical screening borrows the visual characteristics of mobile devices as it fills the theater screen with a “vertical frame” that is taller than it is wide. After the theater release run ends, the content will be divided and unveiled as “short dramas” in short-episode form through “Resin Snack,” in line with the original planning intent.

Taking on a new realm dubbed “short drama direction,” Director Lee Joon-ik said, “A limited vertical frame becomes a lens that can capture even the character’s deepest, most private corners more clearly,” adding, “Our focus in directing was to maximize the depth of the narrative while not losing the unique virtues the original webtoon has.”