Freddie (Ji-Min Park, impressive), born in South Korea 25 years ago and adopted by French parents, arrives in Seoul “by accident” after her flight to Tokyo is canceled. She bonds with Tena, the desk clerk at her hotel, and sleeps with a man she meets with Tena in a restaurant.
Although Freddie first insists that she is not in Korea to find her parents, she goes to an adoption agency. She learns that the agency can send telegrams to her parents, who can respond and allow the agency to arrange for a rendezvous or ask the agency not to contact them again, a request the agency must honor. Freddie asks them to send the telegrams. When her father responds, she visits him, with Tena as their translator. Her mother, however, does not reply – at least initially.
Director Davy Chou, making his second narrative feature, has maturity and style, and he works well with his leading lady, who has never acted in a movie before (her background is in performance art). However, like “A Thousand and One,” his film meanders, and like A.V. Rockwell’s debut, it overstays its welcome – both movies clock in at 116 minutes.
Chou was born in France and is of Cambodian ancestry. Like a lot of French directors (Leos Carax is the most obvious example), he likes to have his main character bottle up their emotions and then express these feelings in a couple of spectacular dance sequences (in Carax’s “Mauvais Sang” from 1986 it was Denis Lavant’s tour de force to David Bowie’s “Modern Love”). Boy, does Park put every ounce of her being into these numbers! Unfortunately, she remains an enigma, and although we get some sustenance from a lovely scene in a Romanian guest house toward the end of the movie, you still come away dissatisfied. Maybe “Return to Seoul” is due for a sequel!
