Return to Seoul

Return to Seoul centres on Freddie (Park Ji-min) – a young woman born in South Korea but adopted as an infant and raised in France – who's travelled to Seoul to seek out her biological parents. It's a setup that initially appears to be a simple tale of self-discovery where our protagonist reconnects with her family and comes away with a fuller sense of who she is. But Davy Chou’s film is much thornier than that. 

Freddie’s initial journey gives way to a series of returns, each one occurring at a different stage in her life and accompanied by a brand-new persona: now she’s a member of an edgy underground art scene, now a high-powered businesswoman, now a hardy lone traveller. No matter how much Freddie’s appearance might change, Park’s commanding performance ensures that the character's soul remains intact. Freddie can’t sit still, impelled to chase down a place where she belongs and also run from it.

She mocks Korean drinking customs and baulks at her biological father’s clumsy attempts to connect with her. She picks up friends and boyfriends along the way then cuts them loose on an impulse. She flies thousands of miles on a whim. She cries, year after year, when her biological mother refuses to make contact with her. Freddie is blunt, blithe and sometimes even consciously cruel. But thanks to Park’s captivating performance and the film’s own propulsive, whirling energy, we get swept up by her just as helplessly as every other Seoul resident she comes into contact with.