Reactions from Overseas Viewers to 'Possible Love': "This Film Won't Leave My Head" [K-EYES]

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"The rich and the poor are like water and oil. No matter how hard you shake them, they eventually separate."

Director Lee Chang-dong's film "Possible Love" was released worldwide on Netflix on the 6th, and reviews from overseas viewers have been accumulating. After receiving acclaim from critics at home and abroad—including winning the Grand Jury Prize (Silver Lion) at the Venice International Film Festival in September and being selected as Korea's submission for the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film in August—the film has now begun to receive evaluations from global home audiences.

"Possible Love" is Director Lee Chang-dong's new work, released eight years after "Burning" (2018). The story unfolds around Hyeok-seok (played by Sol Kyung-gu), a worker carrying deep wounds following a large-scale layoff, and his wife Mi-ok (played by Jeon Do-yeon), who become entangled with documentary director Ye-ji (played by Cho Yeo-jeong) and wealthy businessman Sang-woo (played by Cho In-sung). The film has a runtime of 164 minutes.

Critics have been overwhelmingly positive. Since its premiere at the Venice Film Festival in September, its Rotten Tomatoes critics' score stands at nearly perfect 98%, while the audience score is also high at 85%. Its Metacritic score is 93.

On the film and drama rating site IMDb, the film currently holds a rating of 7.9 out of 10, based on reviews from over 2,400 viewers.

Since its release on Netflix, user reviews have also been pouring in with praise. One viewer who gave it 10 points on the first day titled their review "This Film Won't Leave My Head." Alongside the "water and oil" metaphor from the opening, they wrote, "Director Lee Chang-dong captures this gap with quiet intensity. It is cruel, honest, and unforgettable." Another 10-point review described it as a "remarkably intellectual critique of neoliberalism, which can turn even the suffering of others into a commodity for sale."

Praise for the actors has also continued. Reviews include: "All four actors delivered peak performances. Poetic, natural, and steeped in sorrow" (10 points), and "The way Jeon Do-yeon and Sol Kyung-gu express anger and grief felt authentic" (9 points).

One viewer who raised their score after watching the film a second time also stood out. A viewer on the U.S. film review site Rotten Tomatoes confessed, "When I first finished it, I didn't know what to think, so I gave it 2 out of 5. But something strange happened. I couldn't stop thinking about the film." They added, "My score went from 2 to 4.7." On IMDb, a review stated, "It was an 8 for the first 150 minutes, but I raised it to 9 after that." Another review noted, "Nothing is happening, yet everything is happening."

On the other hand, some viewers mentioned being exhausted by the 164th-minute runtime. One Rotten Tomatoes viewer complained, "This film really made me think a lot. About household chores I need to do, what's in the fridge, and what I have to do at work next week." They added, "Just as I'm about to get up from the sofa thinking it's finally over, someone suggests going on a vacation by the sea, and another half of the film begins." An IMDb viewer also criticized the film, stating, "It portrays workers as angels and capitalists as greedy exploiters."

New reviews have continued both before and after its Netflix release. The Indian daily newspaper The Hindu Times gave it a perfect score (5 points), writing, "The camera may come too close to objectively capture Mi-ok's sorrow, but it can never quite capture the quiet resilience within her heart." The U.S. online media outlet Slate commented, "Lee Chang-dong's four outstanding leads portray complex human beings rather than symbolic figures." The U.S. regional weekly Washington City Paper called it a "heavy punch that feels incredibly timely in the age of AI." Previously, the British daily The Guardian gave the film four stars during its screening at the Venice Film Festival in September, describing it as a "delicately tuned, beautifully acted, novel-like work."

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*This content was translated by AI.View Original