The Fin (2025) Movie Drinking Game
Take a Drink: for literal fins
Take a Drink: for Omega/fish-based racism
Take a Drink: for piano-playin’
Take a Drink: for fish-catchin’
Do a Shot: for suspiciously North Korean-esque propaganda
By: Henry J. Fromage (Two Beers) –
I’m practically always going to spring for a Korean movie when given a chance- even when they get formulaic, the formula is different than what you get out of Hollywood.
The Fin is set in a Korea of the dystopian future, one that’s been reunited, but some unmentioned, possibly related nuclear disaster has turned it into a hellhole surrounded by toxic waste. An underclass of mutated humans- ‘Omegas’- is tasked with cleaning it up, one with telltale fins.
A Toast
Director Park Syeyoung creates a unique post-apocalyptic world, one that hints at how it came to be in interesting ways. This is clearly a Unified Korea… but it may have been unified by the North from the looks of it. The propaganda that suffuses the background of the film is well-made and intriguing, and the sci-fi meets body horror segments explaining the nature of the Omega underclass are admirably gnarly.
It’s also a film that applies that same search for context clues to the plot, which is certainly not served on any silver platter. This almost a mood piece, or one meant to communicate the ennui and heartsickness of its protagonist, who’s actually an Omega herself but shows no signs of their signature mutation- their ‘fin’. When an Omega finds her at her karaoke bar/fish pool place of work, he gives her the only piece of her father he can- his fin- and tells her that her father wanted an honorable burial, which is not afforded their kind.
And that’s pretty much it, but her struggles with this task mirror any class- or race-based conflicts in which one group has made another an underclass. She doesn’t want to acknowledge these roots, although to be fair it’s clearly dangerous to do so, a conflict that leads to an admirably dour ending.
Beer Two
While the world-building on what is clearly a pretty tight budget is note-worthy, it leans on greenscreen, color tints, and iffy CGI a bit too much for my taste.
Beer Three
It takes more than a third of the movie to have any idea what the plot of the film actually is, and even when it starts, it doesn’t move terribly fast. It takes its sweet time, so just good to know what you’re in for.
Verdict
The Fin is a contemplative post-apocalyptic Korean meditation on the never-ending evils of class struggle- even after the end.
