Sokcho in Winter Review: An Atmospheric Slow-Burning Story of Familial Bonds and Closeness in a Korean Border City

Based on a novel by Korean-Swiss writer Elisa Shua Dusapin, this elusive yet bracing drama follows guesthouse worker Sooha (Bella Kim) as she drives French writer Yan (Zem Roschdy) to the demilitarised zone just north of the city of Sokcho. Symbolism abounds: Koya Kamura’s first feature also resides in a liminal space of the soul, with Sooha, abandoned by her French father while she was still unborn, caught between dual heritages. After the French-speaking employee is compelled to accompany the mysterious author, she loiters uncomfortably between tetchy friendship and complex desire.

Everyday Existence and Disruption

When she’s not digging into visually stunning seafood cooked by her fishmonger mother (Park Mi-hyeon), Sooha is lolling about with her partner (Do-yu Gong), an aspiring model gunning for a relocation to Seoul. But this comfy routine is disrupted when the outsider settles in for a long-term stay. Initially conforming to her biases about impolite Frenchmen, he turns out, after an online search, to be critically lauded graphic novelist Yan Kerrand. Arriving in Sokcho in pursuit of creative fuel, he manages to extract the account of Sooha’s absent parent from her. She spies on him through a air duct – but the question lingers whether he’s a proxy father, or something else.

Emotional Landscape and Symbolic Layers

Sooha’s buried emotions erupt in bursts of secret, winding moments of bodily suffocation and release. We are privy to only her internal world, though; Yan remains a remote presence, insisting on his solitary principles and sparing with details of his past. His cipher status, as Sooha projects her needs on to him, is intentional – but this imbalance prevents Winter in Sokcho from fully opening up. Visual style – and restraint, with Sooha’s parent and partner both pushing cosmetic surgery on her – is clearly a key theme for Kamura. But despite Yan’s vocation, it seems a bit adjacent to the primary narrative, like the mysterious wrapped guest also in residence.

Performances and Directorial Approach

The three focused performances at the core – an almost hostile Zem, increasingly scattered Bella Kim, and the self-involved Park – give Winter in Sokcho its solid centre, and if Kamura doesn't fully narratively contain the cautious standoff between innkeeper and guest, he is always on his toes in terms of feeling, often dipping into a physical, sensory imagery. Obsessing over absence, threatening to drown in internal sensations, Kamura musters an intriguing kind of modern ghost story.

Winter in Sokcho can be seen on the streaming service from November 7.