Cultures, attitudes and generations collide in Return to Seoul, Davy Chou’s resonant movie about the consequences of an adopted French woman’s decision to find out more about her birth parents. Out on MUBI, the multi-lingual film examines with complexity and acuity the ties that bind Freddie to her land of birth as well gag her upon her return.
In Seoul for an unplanned vacation, Freddie (Ji-Min Park) tentatively begins the process of tracing her birth parents. Adopted by a French couple as an infant, Freddie is as much a foreigner in South Korea as any European tourist.
Her mission is filled with emotional landmines. Her ignorance of Korean etiquette is at times embarrassing. She is disinterested in learning Korean, preferring to communicate through Tena (Guka Han), her friend in Seoul. When she meets her father (Oh Kwang-rok), she is deeply uncomfortable at his emotional reaction.
Defensive, impatient, abrasive – Freddie externalises her feelings at the increasingly bewildering turns her journey is taking. Might everybody concerned be better off not knowing the truth? There are moments when Freddie appears to regret her choices. Freddie’s Continental ways sit at odd with her father’s effusiveness – but there’s much more simmering beneath the surface than a simple culture clash in Davy Chou’s screenplay.
The narrative unfolds over eight years, allowing us to see how Freddie reassesses her identity on her own terms. Return To Seoul, which has been filmed in Korean, French and English, goes beyond the politics of adoption to map the journey of a young woman trying to find her place in a world that suddenly appears incomprehensible.
Ji-Min Park’s terrific performance – a bundle of nerviness, forthrightness and unpredictability – is at the heart of a host of memorable turns. Guka Han, as Tena, Oh Kwang-rok as Freddie’s biological father, and Kim Sun-young as Freddie’s biological aunt beautifully bring out the empathetic reactions of the Korean characters to Freddie’s aching quest for closure.
The intense focus on Freddie does exclude her adoptive parents. They are barely seen in the film – a gap in Freddie’s journey that bothers the viewer who sticks by Freddie’s side through her wanderings but wonders about her life between being adopted and returning home.