Director Lee Chang-dong returns with “Possible Love,” premiering in Venice. The three-hour drama explores class, desire, and exploitation across two mismatched couples brought together by a documentary. Netflix releases the film on November 6.
Modern cinema’s most literary auteur is back. Director Lee Chang-dong has unveiled his first feature in eight years, “Possible Love,” which held its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival. The sweeping, 165-minute drama continues an illustrious awards lineage that Lee helped pave. It was his quiet 2018 thriller, “Burning,” that became the first South Korean film to make the Academy’s international shortlist, laying the crucial groundwork for Bong Joon-ho’s historic sweep with “Parasite” the following year. Yet rather than capitalize immediately on that newfound global spotlight, Lee retreated into another lengthy hiatus before crafting a searing new exploration of economic disparity and interpersonal extraction.
A Brutal Strike and Two Worlds Collide
At the heart of the narrative are two fundamentally different couples whose lives violently intersect in the shadow of corporate downsizing. On one side of the economic gulf stand Mi-ok and Ho-seok, a working-class couple played respectively by Jeon Do-yeon and Sul Kyung-gu. Ho-seok lost his livelihood and sense of purpose when he was downsized two years prior amid mass layoffs at SP Heavy Industries. His life fractured further during a catastrophic crackdown on a subsequent workers’ strike, where state militia left him unconscious for three days and subsequently jailed for a month and a half. Today, he is a traumatized shell of a man, drowning his depression in alcohol while refusing to speak in group counseling sessions.
Mi-ok fights desperately to keep her family afloat and snap her husband out of his catatonic despair. Seeking community and closure, she attends the funeral of a fellow laid-off colleague who took his own life. There, she crosses paths with Ye-ji, an affluent and fashionable documentary filmmaker played by Cho Yeo-jeong. Armed with a project examining the declining state of labor across South Korea, Ye-ji recognizes in Mi-ok and Ho-seok an arresting human story.
Privilege, Parasites, and the Camera Lens
Ye-ji’s creative freedom and luxurious lifestyle are enabled by her husband, Sang-woo, portrayed by Zo In-sung. While Sang-woo is a hedge fund-guy, his wife sets her sights on infiltrating the working-class couple’s domestic sphere. What begins as an earnest documentary project quickly blurs the ethical boundaries of non-fiction filmmaking. Ye-ji thrusts her camera into private corners, inviting the struggling family to dinner dates and eventually to a magnificent vacation home along the country’s western coast featuring a private beach.
“I’m trying to love these people.”
Ye-ji
That defense is deployed when Sang-woo questions his wife’s genuine intentions, accusing her of trying to pretend she is the same as people whose realities she cannot share. Lee Chang-dong maintains a cool, judicious neutrality, refusing to paint the characters with simple heroic or villainous strokes. Instead, the film interrogates whether the documentarian is offering genuine solidarity or simply exploiting human misery for artistic currency. The camera itself functions as an instrument of upper-class privilege, transforming real trauma into consumable content.
Biblical Commandments and Modern Desires
The film opens with an explicit visual nod to Krzysztof Kieślowski’s Dekalog 10, specifically flashing the biblical commandment Thou shalt not covet
across the screen. Yet critics note that Lee deliberately avoids remaking the source material, opting instead to examine a tangled web of mutual envy.
The script constructs a complex matrix where resentment, longing, and economic anxiety bleed into every interaction. As automated businesses render traditional labor invisible to the ownership class, everyday citizens are left desperate to be seen—even if that visibility comes at the steep price of their personal dignity. Lee peppers the narrative with rich flashbacks, including poignant glimpses into Mi-ok and Ho-seok’s teenage courtship, grounding their current decay in a heartbreaking history.
Global Release Schedule and Streaming Debut
Audiences worldwide will soon have the opportunity to unpack the film’s deliberate pacing and devastating emotional payoffs. “Possible Love” is in cinemas on October 23. Viewers preferring to stream the drama at home can access it globally when it lands on Netflix on November 6.
