The Return *** (2018, Karoline Sofie Lee, Thomas Hwan) – Movie Review

Karoline Sofie Lee and Thomas Hwan play two Danish-Korean adoptees in their early thirties, who leave Denmark and return for the first time to Korea, where they were born and given up for adoption, for an intense and emotional search for their birth parents.

In the city of Seoul, Karoline and Thomas meet chilly bureaucracy and cool indifference as they embark on an unsettling journey that forces them to question their identity and face their future. Their search is complicated by their lack of speaking Korean and a remarkable lack of documentation by the adoption services in Korea years ago, as well as contemporary social services indifference.

The Return is written by Sissel Dalsgaard Thomsen, and partly based on director Malene Choi’s experiences and partly on stories shared by the adoptees Malene encountered in Seoul while shooting the film.

It is a good-hearted film, warm and sympathetic, as well as involving, with two central performances to match. Karoline Sofie Lee and Thomas Hwan are both appealing and admirably credible, giving  moving performances as lost and dislocated individuals. Malene Choi films in a quasi documentary style, making the film realistic and convincing, with two or three standout scenes as Karoline and Thomas meet the social services or clues to their birth.

While simple and straightforward, The Return raises plenty of complex issues, and is excellent food for thought.

© Derek Winnert 2018 Movie Review

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