Winter in Sokcho Review: A Moody Slow-Burn Tale of Familial Bonds and Closeness in a Korean Border City

Adapted from the book by Korean-Swiss writer Elisa Dusapin, this subtle yet bracing film centers on hotel employee Sooha (Bella Kim) as she drives French writer Yan (Roschdy Zem) to the DMZ just north of the city of Sokcho. Metaphor alert: Koya Kamura’s first feature also camps in a no man’s land of the spirit, with Sooha, abandoned by her father from France while she was still in utero, caught between dual heritages. After the francophone hostess is forced to chaperone the mysterious author, she lingers uneasily between tetchy friendship and complex desire.

Daily Life and Upheaval

If not enjoying visually stunning marine dishes cooked by her fishmonger mother (Park Mi-hyeon), Sooha is relaxing with her boyfriend (Do-yu Gong), an aspiring model gunning for a relocation to Seoul. However this comfy routine is overturned when the foreigner takes up residence for a extended visit. At first matching her biases about rude French men, he proves, after an online search, to be critically lauded comic book writer Yan Kerrand. Coming to Sokcho in search of inspiration, he succeeds in extract the account of Sooha’s absent parent from her. She observes him through a vent – but the question lingers whether he’s a proxy father, or something else.

Emotional Landscape and Symbolic Layers

Sooha’s buried emotions surface in flashes of clandestine, winding moments of physical constraint and liberation. We witness only her inner life, though; Yan stays a distant figure, insisting on his loner ethic and sparing with details of his history. His cipher status, as Sooha imposes her needs on to him, is deliberate – but this one-sidedness prevents Winter in Sokcho from fully opening up. Visual style – and control, with Sooha’s mother and partner both pushing cosmetic surgery on her – is clearly a central idea for Kamura. Yet despite Yan’s vocation, it seems a bit adjacent to the primary narrative, like the mysterious wrapped guest also in residence.

Performances and Directorial Approach

The trio of strong acts at the core – an almost hostile Zem, increasingly scattered Bella Kim, and the self-absorbed Park Mi-hyeon – provide Winter in Sokcho its solid centre, and if Kamura doesn't fully narratively contain the cautious standoff between innkeeper and guest, he is consistently on his toes emotionally speaking, often dipping into a physical, sensory imagery. Fixating on absence, threatening to succumb in subjective feelings, Kamura creates an intriguing kind of contemporary phantom tale.

Winter in Sokcho can be seen on the streaming service from November 7.