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

Based on a novel by Swiss-Korean writer Elisa Dusapin, this elusive yet refreshing drama follows hotel employee Sooha (Bella Kim) as she escorts author from France Yan (Zem Roschdy) to the demilitarised zone just north of the city of Sokcho. Metaphor alert: Koya Kamura’s debut film also camps in a no man’s land of the soul, with Sooha, left behind by her father from France while she was still unborn, caught between dual heritages. After the francophone hostess is compelled to chaperone the mysterious author, she loiters uncomfortably between strained companionship and complex desire.

Daily Life and Disruption

When she’s not digging into visually stunning marine dishes cooked by her mother who sells fish (Mi-hyeon Park), Sooha is lolling about with her partner (Do-yu Gong), an aspiring model aiming for a move to Seoul. But this comfy routine is overturned when the foreigner settles in for a extended visit. At first matching her biases about impolite Frenchmen, he turns out, after an online search, to be acclaimed comic book writer Yan Kerrand. Arriving in Sokcho in pursuit of inspiration, he succeeds in extract the story of Sooha’s absent parent from her. She spies on him through a vent – but it remains to be seen whether he’s a proxy father, or another figure entirely.

Inner Turmoil and Symbolic Layers

Sooha’s buried emotions surface in bursts of clandestine, winding moments of bodily suffocation and release. We are privy to only her inner life, though; Yan stays a remote presence, insisting on his solitary principles and sparing with particulars of his history. His cipher status, as Sooha projects her needs on to him, is deliberate – but this imbalance prevents Winter in Sokcho from fully opening up. Visual style – and control, with Sooha’s mother and partner both advocating plastic surgery on her – is evidently a key theme for Kamura. But in spite of Yan’s profession, it feels a bit adjacent to the primary narrative, like the enigmatic bandaged diner also in the guesthouse.

Acting and Directorial Approach

The trio of strong acts at the centre – an nearly aggressive Roschdy Zem, increasingly scattered Kim, and the self-involved Park Mi-hyeon – give Winter in Sokcho its solid centre, and if Kamura doesn't fully narratively contain the cautious standoff between innkeeper and visitor, he is always on his toes in terms of feeling, often dipping into a tactile visual register. Obsessing over absence, on the verge of succumb in subjective feelings, Kamura creates an fascinating kind of contemporary phantom tale.

The film can be seen on the streaming service from 7 November.