Lee Chang-dong's 'Possible Love' Review: Two Couples Covet — SkimNews
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- Lee Chang-dong's "Possible Love" explores two married couples — one wealthy, one working-class — brought together by the violent suppression of a strike at a fictional Korean metals factory called SP Heavy Industries
- The 164-minute drama stars Jeon Do-yeon ("Secret Sunshine") and Sul Kyung-gu ("Peppermint Candy") as the blue-collar couple, opposite Cho Yeo-jeong ("Parasite") and newcomer Zo In-sung as their affluent counterparts
- Lee and co-screenwriter Oh Jung-mi anchor the script in the biblical commandment "Thou shalt not covet," with the narrative inspired by a similar incident at a massive Korean company more than 10 years ago
- The film was conceived independently but lumped into a tribute omnibus alongside Asghar Farhadi's "Parallel Tales" at Cannes; it is dedicated to the memory of Krzysztof Kieślowski's "Dekalog 10" but is not a remake
- The film's final hour relocates to Sang-woo's luxurious vacation house on Korea's western coast, where the class-driven exploration of desire shifts into more physical and primal territory
- Reviewer calls Jeon Do-yeon's performance "another once-a-century performance," her second collaboration with Lee following "Secret Sunshine"
Why it matters: Lee's first major film since "Burning" extends his literary examination of class exploitation and labor invisibility in Korean society, reuniting him with Jeon Do-yeon and reuniting Korean arthouse cinema with a 164-minute ensemble drama built on dialogue and visual restraint rather than plot mechanics.
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