The grim coastal drama “The Land of Morning Calm” offers a satisfying character portrait

After his fascinating debut The girl on a bulldozerwhich screened at the Busan International Film Festival in 2021, directed by Park Ki-woong returns to the festival with the New Currents competition title The land of the morning calm.

Set far from the big city, the film explores social prejudice and small-mindedness in a tiny and rugged coastal town where it’s impossible to escape prying eyes and tongues.

The film begins at dawn, looking out over an ominously calm sea and a lighthouse under a darkening sky, with only a few seagulls showing signs of life. It soon becomes clear how deeply ironic his title is.

The protagonist, played with crisp authenticity by Yoon Joo-sang, is the aging captain of a small fishing boat who sets out to catch his fish every morning long before sunrise, along with his one crew member, and also ends his days with a few lots of bottles of soju at the local inn.

Although younger, his crew member is similarly depressed in life. Unsuitable for work, he lives with his mother and a Vietnamese woman with whom he is difficult to be seen in public. One day he convinces his boss to leave earlier than usual and release him on a distant shore. The captain is handed a wad of cash and when he returns to port he claims that the crew’s hand was lost at sea.

Faced with his grieving mother and wife, the captain becomes even more argumentative and distant from those around him, especially as the investigation into the disappearance drags on and it becomes difficult to get the insurance payout that the younger man is seeking for this bizarre affair has arranged in motion for.

The land of the morning calm At first it doesn’t make it easy by putting a very unlikeable character in the foreground, but that’s exactly where the film’s strength lies. As time goes on we learn more and more about him, but we also learn more about the close-minded community around him, which at first seems more openly compassionate but gradually shows its true colors. In this way, we begin to understand why the captain is as angry as he is, not that the film ever absolves him of his own racist behavior and questionable actions, some of which caused him to become estranged from his daughter.

Park’s soberly composed and strongly directed film is more structured and nuanced than his debut, and has a more coherent style and tone, although he once again relies on theatrical episodes that take us out of the film’s otherwise naturalistic nature. This includes a very sudden miscarriage that is staged in such a way that it seems exaggerated and unnecessary.

Although the film attempts to paint a portrait of a community as a reflection of a larger society, it is most successful as a portrait of its fascinating lead character, played beautifully by Yoon. The various supporting characters are generally well acted and all have their moments, but in the end they come across as slightly caricatured in comparison, which dilutes some of the film’s messages.

Despite these problems and some occasional pacing issues, particularly in the first half, The land of the morning calm is a compelling sequel to Park that brings together his best elements into a strong final act that brings a satisfying conclusion to the character arc of our miserable but magnetic sea captain.

The film will have its world premiere at the Busan International Film Festival.