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Return to Seoul

Retour à Séoul

  • Status: Released
  • 18-11-2022
  • Runtime: 119 min
  • Score: 6.261
  • Vote count: 435

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.

Park Ji-Min

Freddie

Oh Kwang-rok

Father

Guka Han

Tena

Kim Sun-young

Aunt

Yoann Zimmer

Maxime

Louis-Do de Lencquesaing

Andre

Heo Jin

Grandmother

Emeline Briffaud

Lucie

Lim Cheol-hyun

Kay-Kay

Son Seung-beom

Dongwan

Kim Dong-seok

Jiwan

Cho-woo Choi

Korean Birth Mother

Ioana Luculescu

Romanian Hotel Receptionist

Cha Mi-kyung

The Father's Wife

Nam-Soo Baik

Bus Driver

Gun-woo

Hotel Bartender

Bok-soon Hwang

Neighbor on the Roof

Tae-Seong Jeong

Upscale Restaurant Server

Jinun

Party Friend 1

Young-jae Joe

Party DJ

Eun-sun Jung

Upscale Restaurant Customer

Ae-ri Kim

Girl Who Says Paris Baguette

Diki Kim

Party Friend 2

Joo-yeoh Kim

Hammond Employee in Jeonju

Seong-oh Kim

Restaurant Server in Gunsan

Young-sik Ko

Boy in Leopard Sweatshirt

Jee-Nyang Lee

Party Singer

Joon-ho Lee

Party Wrestler

Myung-hee Chung Lee

Hammond Employee in Seoul

Pyeong-ahn Lee

Hipster Looking For the Bathroom 1

Sang-dae Lee

Taxi Driver (voice)

You-seop Lee

Boy in Leather Jacket

Yeon-ok Lim

Girl Who Says Your Friend Is Original

Bitnara Oh

Half-Sister Cadette

Kug-Hwan Park

Vintage Bar DJ

Ji-hoon Shim

Hipster Looking For the Bathroom 2

Shin Dong-ho

Tena's Father

Hae-in Song

Half-Sister Aimée

Meong-ja Yang

Shoe Saleswoman

Yang-ja Yoon

Old Woman on the Street

Cho Young-Dong

Hammond Old Employee in Jeonju

CinemaSerf

I think I may have warmed to this film better had I not taken an instant dislike to "Freddie" (Park Ji-min). Now it's certainly a testament to this actor that she is able to successfully - and pretty immediately - engender a sense that her character is a rather selfish, manipulative and unpleasant individual; but I'm afraid I struggled to remain engaged as her troubled story of adoption and of her re-introduction to her birth family is played out over the next two hours. "Freddie" appears to have been happily brought up by a couple in France, so her increasingly thoughtless behaviour doesn't really have an anchor - and as we progress and she becomes more obnoxious - as exemplified by her final scene in the car with poor old "Maxime" (Yoann Zimmer) - I found the story has just about run out of merit. The acting is generally good. The efforts from her slightly dipso dad (Oh Kwang-rok) is convincing as he has to reconcile the discovery of his long-lost daughter with his dependency on the bottle and her own pretty obvious disdain for the man. It also offers us quite an interesting insight into just how adoptions worked as the decline of the French colonial system in post-war Korea led to many children being offered by parents who hoped that a childhood and education in France would offer greater opportunity, but again with "Freddie" that isn't really developed. What has turned her into this rather objectionable person is rather left aside. It has an element of "be careful what you wish for" to it, and is, at times, an interesting observation on the stresses of the post-adoption processes but I just didn't like or care about her and so my enthusiasm just waned.