'Return to Seoul' is about reinvention, not resolution

https://www.npr.org/2023/02/18/ [login to see] /return-to-seoul-review
Return to Seoul is a film that's easy to love: it has a killer soundtrack, a magnetic protagonist, and a gorgeous cinematic backdrop filled with rich colors and empty bottles of Soju. At its core, it tells a coming of age story — one that challenges the confines of "childhood" and "adulthood" and contemplates the impermanence of who we are.

Davy Chou's third feature film revolves around a 25-year-old French adoptee named Frédérique Benoît (Park Ji-Min), Freddie for short, and her quest to track down her biological parents in South Korea. Freddie is impulsive, electric and effortlessly cool; she does what she wants and arrives in Seoul spontaneously with no knowledge of the culture or language. At the hotel, she befriends a young French-speaking Korean woman named Tena (Guka Han), who suggests she pay a visit to the Hammond Adoption Center. Freddie's mother leaves the agency's telegrams unanswered, but Freddie is able to get in touch with her biological father (Oh Kwang-Rok) — a man who is sorrowful, a bit of an alcoholic, and someone who desperately wants to right his wrongs from the last 20 or so years.