I liked director Davy Chou’s 2016 film Diamond Island and his latest feature, set in South Korea rather than Cambodia, has the same slow, introspective quality.

Freddie (Park Ji-min but disappointingly not the BTS idol) is a young French woman who was adopted from South Korea as a baby and travels to Seoul on a whim. On another whim, she visits the adoption agency and is put in touch with her biological father, played by Oh Kwang-rok. The film tracks Freddie through this first (interminable) visit, where she comes across as obnoxious, entitled and oblivious to cultural etiquette, and then to subsequent visits at various times over the next eight years.

The synopsis talks about her evolution at each stage but, other than hairstyle, she remains a person who is difficult to like. She seems to have no empathy and although we might attribute this to adoption trauma, there never feels like there is sufficient justification for it. In the meantime, we see a little of Korea, from conservative households where women serve, to nightclubs where artists drink and dance the night away.

There are many long takes that force us to join Freddie in her scowling discomfort with everything that does not serve her needs. Park Ji-min is watchable but can’t seem to add depth to a character who seems perenially petulant.

---

Have you seen this film? Let me know your thoughts.