‘The Land Of Morning Calm’: Busan Review

Dir/scr: Park Ri-woong. South Korea. 2024. 114mins

The best laid plans rarely work out as expected in The Land Of Morning Calm. The second feature from Park Ri-woong following 2022’s The Girl On A Bulldozer unfolds in a small South Korean costal town rocked by the disappearance of a fisherman. The anxious wait to discover his fate exposes the old wounds and bitter prejudices at play in this seemingly tranquil backwater. A slippery, cleverly-plotted tale is nicely sustained, and could earn Park the audience who savoured the early promise of directors like Bong Joon Ho and Park Chan-wook.

Park Ri-woong maintains a tight control of a well-crafted narrative

The idyllic nature of the village of Nam-myeon is established in the opening shots as the soft dawn sunlight breaks to sounds of tinkling wind chimes and creaking boats moored in the harbour. Captain Yeong-guk (Yoon Joo-sang) heads out to sea with Yong-su (Park Jong-hwan), a diffident, depressed-seeming young fisherman. A clumsy accident leaves the older man in need of medical attention, a morsel of news that spreads through a community where everyone knows everybody’s business.

Yeong-guk reminds the doctor that he served in Vietnam and his hostility towards the Vietnamese becomes a recurring theme of the film. It lies in the smallest prejudice, including his dislike of coriander – “The Viet Cong always put that in their runny porridge,” he grumps. His prejudices are amplified in the community, especially in the hostility experienced by the Vietnamese brides who have tried to make a life there.

Shortly afterwards, Yeong-guk and Yong-su head out in the dark night seas. Yeong-guk drops the younger man at the nearest land and then returns to shore and announces that he has been tragically lost at sea. A missing person is reported to the authorities and a massive manhunt is soon underway. Park Ri-woong makes the audience complicit in the story that subsequently unfolds. We know that Yong-su is alive, but nobody in Nam-myeon does. He has not shared his plan to disappear with either his mother Pan-Rye (Yang Hee-kyung) or his pregnant Vietnamese wife Yeong-ran (Khazsak).

The Land Of Morning Calm is built on the mystery of how this deception will work out, and what the bigger plan might be. That is an intriguing enough scenario in its own right, but what matters more is the impact of events on those closest to Yong-su. His distraught mother keeps a lonely vigil at the harbour’s edge, convinced that he will return. His wife now finds her application for Korean citizenship threatened by the fact that she cannot produce her husband. Convoluted bureaucracy prevents him being declared dead even after weeks have passed. There is also the burden of guilt that Yeong-guk must carry as he remains true to his promise that he would not reveal Yong-su’s plan.

Park Ri-woong maintains a tight control of a well-crafted narrative filled with subtle twists and emotional bombshells. He maintains our interest in the story, but also uses it to deliver social commentary and reveal home truths about the community and the central characters. This is a place of traditions and strongly held views with a hierarchy built on social status.  Outsiders and ‘losers’ are considered second class citizens and treated accordingly.

Every member of the ensemble cast impresses. Khazsak captures a potent sense of a young woman sickened by anxiety over her uncertain future. Yang Hee-kyung is a fiery presence as a mother who never loses hope and Yoon Joo-sang is terrific as an embittered, drunken old man whose forbidding exterior gradually slips to reveal a much more complicated, sympathetic figure, his wide-ranging performance convincingly capturing all of his character’s hidden pain, deep flaws and generous heart.