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CinemaSerfMar 2026

3.0

This was so not what I was expecting when I read the title. It’s all about the young Nanju Lee who has returned home to her family in South Korea after a four year absence intent on trying to bury the hatchet. She immediately immerses herself in the more traditional aspects and symbolism of life, but any chance for reconciliation is easier said than done as we discover that there is an history of domestic violence that has caused ructions between her parents and between her and her father. She is extending an olive branch, but he seems incapable - unwilling, at any rate, to acknowledge any historical wrongdoing on his part so what chance any meaningful rapprochement can occur? I found this to be just a bit too contrived to convince and the erratic pacing of the evolving plot didn’t really help me, either. We are drip fed information, but too slowly and inconclusively for much of this overlong half hour and for a documentary it had more of a scripted docudrama feel to it. It maybe needed ten minutes less to better focus more on the cause and effects of her disturbed childhood and the potentially unique terms of any resolution? It’s worth a watch but isn’t quite the sum of it’s parts.