In a welcome piece of news for fans of Asian arthouse cinema, Netflix has set Lee Chang-dong‘s much-anticipated drama Possible Love — the revered Korean auteur’s first film since 2018’s Burning — for a limited release in U.S. theaters on Oct. 23 ahead of its worldwide streaming launch on Nov. 6.
Netflix is positioning the film — one of its most highbrow features of the fall — for an awards-season run. Possible Love will make its world premiere in September at the Venice Film Festival, where it will vie for the Golden Lion, followed by a North American debut as a gala selection at the Toronto International Film Festival.
Possible Love reunites Lee with two of his most accomplished earlier collaborators. The film stars Jeon Do-yeon, who won the Cannes best actress prize as the shattered lead of Lee’s Secret Sunshine in 2007, and Sul Kyung-gu, the unforgettable lead of the director’s early masterpieces Peppermint Candy (1999) and Oasis (2002). They are joined by Zo In-sung (Moving, Escape from Mogadishu) and Cho Yeo-jeong (best known globally as the gullible rich wife of Bong Joon Ho’s Parasite).
Netflix also shared a poster and a first-look still from the film on Tuesday along with the release plans. The poster shows the film’s two female leads, Jeon and Cho, standing apart beneath moonlit trees at dawn — the frame’s pervasive stillness carrying an unmistakable charge of unease. Similarly, the still shows the ensemble cast standing by the sea, with their glances carrying a complicated sense of emotional intrigue.
Beyond the cast and art, little has been revealed about Lee’s new feature beyond an official plot summary: “Possible Love follows the intertwined relationship of two married couples facing different paths and hidden desires. Mi-ok (Jeon Do-yeon) lives quietly with her laid-off husband Ho-seok (Sul Kyung-gu) and their young son Cheol until a funeral brings them into the orbit of Ye-ji (Cho Yeo-jeong), a documentary filmmaker chronicling laid-off workers, and her husband Sang-woo (Zo In-sung) — a couple whose affluent lifestyle stands in sharp contrast to their own. When Mi-ok agrees to be filmed, she grows close to Ye-ji, and finds herself uneasily drawn to the unreadable Sang-woo. As their worlds collide, fractures begin to appear in their daily existence.”
Although he’s never received an Oscar nom or had a film make much international commercial impact, Lee’s work has accrued a level of reverence among global cineastes that few auteurs can match. Across six features in three decades, the novelist-turned-director — who also served, improbably, as South Korea’s culture minister in the early 2000s — has picked apart the emotional fault lines of Korean society with a spare, literary intensity. Along the way, he picked up Venice’s special director’s prize for Oasis, the Cannes screenplay award for Poetry (2010) and, with Burning, the Cannes critics’ prize and the distinction of becoming the first Korean film shortlisted for an Oscar in the international feature category.
Lee co-wrote Possible Love with his Burning writing partner Oh Jung-mi. Pinehouse Film, the Korean outfit that also backed Burning, produces alongside Anonymous Content and NOWFILM. The film is a U.S.-Korea co-production.
“I’m not the type of filmmaker who can make movies easily,” Lee said in a statement accompanying the release date announcement on Netflix’s Tudum site. “Before I begin a film, I must be certain of what it means — to me, to the audience, and to cinema itself. That is why Possible Love took so long to make.”
Netflix
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