Lee Chang-dong Returns to Venice With 'Possible Love' — SkimNews
Get the Culture newsletter
Daily culture — film, music, books, the trends and ideas worth your attention. Free.
- Lee Chang-dong's 'Possible Love' premieres in Venice competition, his first feature since 2018's 'Burning,' and will play Toronto, Busan, and London before opening theatrically Oct. 23 and streaming on Netflix starting Nov. 6.
- Sul Kyung-gu and Jeon Do-yeon reunite with Lee 24 and 20 years after 'Oasis' (Venice best director, 2002) and 'Secret Sunshine' respectively; Sul says he signed on before reading a script because 'just the name Lee Chang-dong means complete trust for me.'
- The film centers on a 2009 mass layoff and 70-day strike at a major Korean company followed by a violent crackdown — a story Lee began writing soon after but shelved for years because he couldn't resolve whether fictionalizing real workers' pain was justified.
- Co-writer Oh Jung-mi broke the deadlock by suggesting a filmmaker character be added alongside the workers' story, which Lee says let him 'be more honest in the storytelling' and put the ethics of representation — 'are we worthy of telling their story?' — to the audience as much as himself.
- Lee grounds the film in the 10th commandment ('thou shalt not covet') and Kieślowski's 'Dekalog 10,' framing the question as how much resistance to coveting is possible 'in this capitalist society we live today,' with the wealthy filmmaker couple played by first-time Lee collaborators Cho Yeo-jeong and Zo In-sung.
- Jeon says the project lands at a moment of frustration watching commercial appeal 'crowd out character work' in the Korean industry, calling it 'so significant for me at this juncture,' and re-read Mi-ok's pull toward Sang-woo as 'curiosity' rather than desire once shooting began.
Why it matters: A Lee Chang-dong feature is a rare event — this is his first in seven years — and the casting is itself the headline: Jeon and Sul only reappear with him. Jeon says the role comes as she's openly frustrated with where Korean cinema is heading, and the Oct. 23 theatrical / Nov. 6 Netflix split positions the film as both festival prestige and a global streaming event for a director once credited with putting Korean film on the map.
Ask SkimNews
