Hana Korea (2025) Movie Drinking Game
Take a Drink: for new discoveries of South Korean life
Take a Drink: whenever someone tries to pigeonhole Hyesun
Take a Drink: when ghosts of the past reemerge
Do a Shot: whenever a bus is delayed
By: Henry J. Fromage (Two Beers) –
Hana Won is a South Korean governmental program with the aim of getting North Korean emigres on their feet before they join general society.
Hana Korea follows one member of the program, Hyesun (Kim Minha, Pachinko), who’s fled North Korea and seeks to start a new life in the South. This is no easy journey itself, but rather a life-long one for which this is just the first step.
A Toast
This is the first narrative feature film from Danish director Frederik Sølberg, who comes from the world of documentaries, and that experience resounds to this film’s benefit. This is a world my South Korean wife was only cursorily familiar with, and Sølberg’s attention to detail is fascinating.
The real challenges arise when Hyesun leaves the program and enters the non-stop bustle of Seoul. She knows she needs to study, but also work so she can send money back home for her mother’s medicine. She encounters racism, con-artistry, and sexual harassment as she goes, but someone who survived to make it to South Korea isn’t ultimately going to be stopped by any of that. Minha is superb as Hyesun, in a muted but expressive register that recalls her work in Pachinko, although the characters are very distinct.
Beer Two
I would have liked to have learned more about Hyesun’s life in North Korea and experiences escaping from there and living in China, but arguably that’s not what this film is about, and there are enough clues to put together a picture of the tribulations that led to her leaving.
Verdict
Hana Korea is a sensitive, beautifully acted portrayal of one North Korean woman’s adjustment to her new life in Seoul.
