Way Back Home (Chip ŭro kanŭn kil) dir. by Pang Ŭnchin (review)

Among the small number of women filmmakers working in the South Korean film industry, actress-turned filmmaker Pang Ŭnchin has produced modest box office hits since her debut film Aurora Princess (Orora Kongchu, 2005). Pang’s latest film, Way Back Home (Chip ŭro kanŭn kil, 2013), received much media attention as it marked the return of Cannes’ best actress winner Chŏn Toyŏn to the silver screen after her previous failure with Countdown (K’aunt’ŭdaun, 2011). But more important, the film marked a new chapter in South Korean film history, as it became the first South Korean film to be shot in the Caribbean.

Way Back Home is based on a true incident of an ordinary Korean housewife, Chang Mi Chŏng, who unknowingly tried to smuggle thirty-seven pounds of cocaine into Paris in 2004. When she arrived at Orly Airport from Guyana, the French police captured and detained her. She was then transferred to a prison in Martinique without trial. This story was later a featured broadcast of In-Depth 60 Minutes (Ch’uchŏk yuksippun, KBS, 1994–present) and the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs received scrutiny for not providing proper legal assistance to Chŏng after she committed an illegal act while overseas.

The film opens with the arrival of Song Chŏngyŏn (Chŏn Toyŏn) at Orly Airport. Her nonverbal gestures convey anxiety and insecurity while she waits for the immigration officer to call her name. She receives clearance from the immigration official and then proceeds to the baggage claim. As she grabs her black suitcase, there is an off-screen voice emanating from a French officer calling, “Madame.” Undertaking a non-linear approach to the narrative, the film then regresses to a couple of months earlier with a scene of Song and her husband, Kim Chongbae (Ko Su), operating an automobile repair shop in South Korea. Their happy middle-class family life takes a dramatic turn when their close friend unexpectedly commits suicide. Kim runs into financial debt as the guarantor of his friend’s business. Unable to recover from its financial burden, Song makes the bold decision to smuggle gemstones from Surinam to salvage her family from their financial woes but ends up, unbeknownst to her, smuggling cocaine.

The film is an addition to the genre of legal drama films that have gained prominence in the South Korean film industry with the success of films such as Unbowed (Purŏjin hwasal, directed by Chŏng Chiyŏng, 2011), The Client (Ŭiroein, directed by Son Yŏngsŏng, 2011), and The Attorney (Pyŏnhoin, directed by Yang Usŏk, 2014). While legal drama films grapple with issues of corruption and injustice in the legal system, and most of the screen time takes place at the court, highlighting the tumultous litigation battles between the defendants and the prosecutors, Way Back Home deviates from this conventional approach to the genre. Director Pang does not employ flashbacks to reveal the actual events that took place between the time Song left South Korea and arrived at Orly Airport. Instead, the film centers around the story of Song’s resilient character as a wife and mother of a four-year-old daughter. The film portrays Song as a woman who was not only forced to make a wrong decision but also as a strong, determined mother who overcomes emotional and physical sufferings with the hope of reuniting with her family.

Aside from Song’s radical transformation from an ordinary housewife to a foreign prison inmate on a Caribbean island, Pang interjects satirical commentary throughout the film as a political critique of the corruption and incompetency of South Korean government officials. Rather than acting proactively to secure a trial for Song, the South Korean embassy officials in France are depicted as ignorant and inhumane government workers who are far more concerned with dining in three-star Michelin restaurants, posing for photos with international delegates, and snacking...