Sokcho in Winter Review: An Atmospheric Slow-Burn Story of Family and Intimacy in a South Korean Frontier Town

Adapted from a novel by Swiss-Korean writer Elisa Shua Dusapin, this subtle yet bracing film follows guesthouse worker Sooha (Kim Bella) as she drives French writer Yan (Roschdy Zem) to the demilitarised zone just north of the city of Sokcho. Metaphor alert: Koya Kamura’s first feature also camps in a liminal space of the soul, with Sooha, abandoned by her French father while she was still unborn, caught between two cultures. Once the francophone hostess is compelled to chaperone the mysterious author, she lingers uneasily between tetchy friendship and Oedipal attraction.

Daily Life and Upheaval

If not enjoying visually stunning marine dishes prepared by her mother who sells fish (Mi-hyeon Park), Sooha is lolling about with her boyfriend (Gong Do-yu), an aspiring model gunning for a move to the capital. But this comfy routine is disrupted when the outsider takes up residence for a long-term stay. At first conforming to her prejudices about impolite Frenchmen, he proves, after an online search, to be acclaimed comic book writer Yan Kerrand. Arriving in Sokcho in pursuit of inspiration, he succeeds in extract the account of Sooha’s missing father from her. She spies on him through a air duct – but it remains to be seen whether he’s a surrogate parent, or something else.

Emotional Landscape and Thematic Depth

Sooha’s subterranean feelings erupt in bursts of clandestine, winding moments of physical constraint and release. We are privy to only her inner life, though; Yan stays a remote presence, insisting on his loner ethic and stingy with details of his history. His cipher status, as Sooha projects her needs on to him, is deliberate – but this one-sidedness prevents Winter in Sokcho from reaching its full potential. Aesthetic expression – and restraint, with Sooha’s mother and partner both pushing plastic surgery on her – is evidently a central idea for Kamura. But despite Yan’s profession, it seems a bit adjacent to the main story, like the enigmatic wrapped guest also in the guesthouse.

Acting and Directorial Approach

The trio of strong acts at the centre – an nearly aggressive Roschdy Zem, increasingly scattered Bella Kim, and the self-absorbed Park – provide Winter in Sokcho its emotional anchor, and if Kamura can’t quite narratively contain the cautious standoff between innkeeper and visitor, he is always on his toes emotionally speaking, often dipping into a tactile visual register. Obsessing over absence, threatening to drown in internal sensations, Kamura creates an fascinating kind of modern ghost story.

Winter in Sokcho is available on the streaming service from 7 November.