X
  • 2022
  • R
  • Sony Pictures Classics
  • 1 h 59 m
  • 2022
  • R
  • Sony Pictures Classics
  • 1 h 59 m

Summary After an impulsive travel decision to visit friends, Freddie, 25, returns to South Korea for the first time, where she was born before being adopted and raised in France. Freddie suddenly finds herself embarking on (an unexpected) journey in a country she knows so little about, taking her life in new and unexpected directions.

Directed By: Davy Chou

Written By: Laure Badufle, Violette Garcia, Davy Chou

  • 2022
  • R
  • Sony Pictures Classics
  • 1 h 59 m
  • 2022
  • R
  • Sony Pictures Classics
  • 1 h 59 m
Return to Seoul
Metascore Universal Acclaim Based on 37 Critic Reviews
87
User Score Generally Favorable Based on 19 User Ratings
7.5
My Score
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Where to Watch

Summary After an impulsive travel decision to visit friends, Freddie, 25, returns to South Korea for the first time, where she was born before being adopted and raised in France. Freddie suddenly finds herself embarking on (an unexpected) journey in a country she knows so little about, taking her life in new and unexpected directions.

Directed By: Davy Chou

Written By: Laure Badufle, Violette Garcia, Davy Chou

Where to Watch

Top Cast

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Critic Reviews

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Metascore
Universal Acclaim Based on 37 Critic Reviews
87
100% Positive
37 Reviews
0% Mixed
0 Reviews
0% Negative
0 Reviews

  • All Reviews
  • Positive Reviews
  • Mixed Reviews
  • Negative Reviews

Critic Reviews

 View All
Metascore
Universal Acclaim Based on 37 Critic Reviews
87
100% Positive
37 Reviews
0% Mixed
0 Reviews
0% Negative
0 Reviews

  • All Reviews
  • Positive Reviews
  • Mixed Reviews
  • Negative Reviews
100
May 4, 2023
Go back to your roots, we’re always told, and you’ll find your heart’s true home. But in Davy Chou’s daring and mesmeric Return to Seoul, an adoptee’s search for her birth parents tears open wounds and unearths neither meaning nor resolution.
By Clarisse Loughrey FULL REVIEW
100
Dec 7, 2022
Return to Seoul begins as an intimately off-the-cuff stranger-in-strange-land story and becomes a sprawling epic of personal discovery. It’s one of the best films of the year.
By Jason Bailey FULL REVIEW

User Reviews

 View All
User Score
Generally Favorable Based on 19 User Ratings
7.5
68% Positive
13 Ratings
26% Mixed
5 Ratings
5% Negative
1 Rating

  • All Reviews
  • Positive Reviews
  • Mixed Reviews
  • Negative Reviews

User Reviews

 View All
User Score
Generally Favorable Based on 19 User Ratings
7.5
68% Positive
13 Ratings
26% Mixed
5 Ratings
5% Negative
1 Rating

  • All Reviews
  • Positive Reviews
  • Mixed Reviews
  • Negative Reviews
10
Galaxy64
Feb 20, 2023
this was a masterpiece. well worth watching.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Report
8
Ramato
Feb 19, 2023
powerful actress. love the editing, especially how the director tell the story and time passing with really cool cuts. soundtrack is very good. photography as well. overall a very good movie
Report
91
Sep 8, 2022
It’s the rare movie that can drop a long-take dance sequence into the middle of a pressing conversation without seeming the least bit mannered or aloof; the rare movie that only feels more honest as a result of its most flamboyant choices, and only makes its heroine more empathetic as a result of how she pushes other people away.
By David Ehrlich FULL REVIEW
85
Oct 28, 2022
Though I missed the larger context of Freddie’s life, Return to Seoul’s commitment to staying in the moment creates an engrossing cinematic experience, an inextricable character portrait both intimate and fathomless.
FULL REVIEW
80
May 3, 2023
The film isn’t inconclusive but its time and continent-sweeping structure is anything but conventional: and that’s what makes the mercurial Return to Seoul, in the end, so remarkable.
By Ella Kemp FULL REVIEW
78
Apr 5, 2023
In her assured film debut as Freddie, Park holds your rapt attention.
By Steve Davis FULL REVIEW
63
Feb 22, 2023
A carefully wrought character study of a person who lives life with careless abandon.
By Michael O'Sullivan FULL REVIEW
See All 37 Critic Reviews
6
JLuis_001
Apr 28, 2023
It doesn't pack much of an emotional punch because of the way it rambles on in sequences that aren't adding much to the character's personality. I never felt like I was fully getting to know her, but you still don't lose sight of her quest. I understand that one can intuit that with several of these passages the director believes that this helps to know her better, but I felt at all times that there was a barrier between the character and her emotions. A wall that doesn't break until the climax where it ends up breaking down once she gets the emotional catharsis she was looking for and clearly needed. Return to Seoul is not a bad film but it involves immersing yourself in a story of identity and search for your origins that despite its quality, does not bring anything new that would give it an identity of its own that would separate it from other films with the same theme. The film gets the job done because it works well enough, and that's commendable, it's just that it's a film that doesn't really stand out.
Report
4
SayreTX
Sep 16, 2023
A woman is sad about having been adopted when she was a child. This film has almost nothing else to say, other than some interesting glimpses into everyday life in South Korea.
Report
See All 4 User Reviews

Details

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Production Company Aurora Films, Vandertastic Films, Frakas Productions, Merecinema, Anti-Archive, Ciné+, Centre national du cinéma et de l'image animée (CNC), Filmförderungsanstalt (FFA), Cinémage 16, Cofimage 33, VOO, BE TV, Belga Productions, Tax Shelter du Gouvernement Fédéral Belge, Belga Films Fund, Korean Film Council, Seoul Metropolitan Government, Seoul Film Commission, Doha Film Institute
Release Date Dec 2, 2022
Duration 1 h 59 m
Rating R
Genres
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Awards

Asian Film Awards
• 6 Nominations
Asia Pacific Screen Awards
• 2 Wins & 3 Nominations
Hamptons International Film Festival
• 1 Win & 2 Nominations

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