Adoptee tries to find her roots in ‘Return to Seoul’
A dark, somber, repetitious tale, “Return to Seoul” tells the story of 25-yearold woman named Frederique Benoit aka Freddie aka Yeon-Hee (Park Ji-min), who was adopted in South Korea as a baby and raised in France by a French couple. En route to Tokyo, glum, free-spirited Freddie is redirected to Seoul, where she meets some locals and learns that there is an adoption agency in the city where she can get help contacting her biological parents, if she chooses. At a dinner with her new friends Tena (Guka Han), who communicates with Freddy in English, and French-speaking Dongwan (Song Seung-Beom), Freddie acts up, making young people sit together for more carousing. Waking up in a guest house room with a stranger, Freddie initiates something that is more meaningful for him.
“Return to Seoul” has the beats of real life, and it is indeed inspired by the life of a friend of writer-director Davy Chou, who was born in France to parents from Cambodia. The film feels less like a narrative than like a reenactment. Freddie goes to the adoption agency. Telegrams are sent to her biological parents. Her father (Oh Kwang-rok) gets in touch with her, but not her mother. Freddie and Tena go to the country to meet Freddie’s father, a fisherman-turnedair-conditioner-repairman, who drinks too much and is still reeling with guilt over the fate of his first daughter. Freddie also meets her very emotional grandmother, a devout Christian, her two younger sisters and her English-speaking aunt. Freddie’s parents are divorced. Her Korean mother lives in another part of the country. Her father insists on taking her and Tena, who translates, to the place where he grew up, a quaint coastal village with an island that is connected to the land when the tide is low and when the tide is high can only be reached by boat. That is not a bad description of the emotionally remote Freddy. She will later tell a French boyfriend that she can “wipe him away with a snap of her fingers.” Charming.
“Return to Seoul” features several returns over the course of seven years. Freddy returns after two years and appears to work as an escort. She has a assignation with a middleaged French arms dealer and a boyfriend, who is an artist. He makes the mistake of throwing her a surprise birthday party. Freddie hates birthdays, hers especially. She gets high and tries to make trouble.
If you get the feeling that Freddie isn’t much fun to be around, I’m here to tell you that was the case for me. I was not sure if I was supposed to feel bad for her or to be annoyed by her. I certainly did not believe that in addition to playing the piano, Freddie would become an arms dealer whom a colleague would describe as a “real-life James Bond Girl.” Also why does Chou choose to shoot Freddie from the waist up in a scene in which she dances ecstatically by herself in a bar. Making her screen debut, Park Ji-min is either a fascinating and mysterious force of nature or a moody bore. Take your pick.
(“Return to Seoul” contains sexually suggestive material, drug use and profanity)