As the 64th New York Film Festival showcases Lee Chang-dong’s film Possible Love
alongside director Yoon Ga-eun’s 2025 work World of Love
, a critic highlights a shift in South Korean cinema toward narratives centered on human affection and connection beyond harsh depictions of violence and class struggle.
The 2000s established a tradition of well-made South Korean films rooted in long-standing realism and social critique, which quickly accessed international film markets by embracing Hollywood grammar. Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite
came to represent the 21st century by exploring capital, class, and universal oppression.
Completing the Class Trilogy
Following Parasite
, Park Chan-wook’s I Can’t Help It
and Lee Chang-dong’s Possible Love
completed a South Korean film class trilogy.
In Parasite
, class divisions are represented by surface and underground spaces that erupt violently when their fragile coexistence collapses. In Park’s dark fairy tale I Can’t Help It
, workers eliminate one another in a contest of loyalty to capital, leaving the winner’s internalized structural murmurings buried within music.
By contrast, Lee Chang-dong’s new film avoids genre grammar and fairy-tale styling, opting instead to explore documentary-like possibilities. The narrative portrays characters from different economic strata who share disappointments, visit one another’s homes, and exchange both blows and jokes, asking whether love remains possible despite the pain and artificiality.
The Shift Toward Love and Affection
South Korean cinema is increasingly turning toward stories of love. Yoon Ga-eun’s 2025 film World of Love
(titled 세계의 주인
in Korean) stands out by departing from historical traditions of depicting sexual violence—such as those seen in A Petal
and Han Gong-ju
—which frequently subjected female victims to patriarchal gazes demanding a specific form of victimhood. The character Joo-in counters this by declaring that her life is not ruined.
Although the South Korean film industry has struggled to recover following the COVID-19 pandemic, these developments signal a transition away from imaginative works that probe deep wounds and bloodshed toward stories that quietly reach out to hold hands and talk about love.
