Lee Chang-dong takes his time. The lauded Korean filmmaker, approaching the 30th anniversary of his 1997 debut feature Green Fish , returns this fall with Possible Love , his first movie in eight years — the same gap between his previous two projects, 2010’s Poetry and 2018’s Burning .

In his work, the wait proves not only worth it, but necessary — with character dynamics so richly, exactingly executed and the kind of narrative depth that can only come out of extensive marination.

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Executive Chair Possible Love Updates

as CEO and Executive Chair Possible Love had been gestating for a decade. When Lee had the initial idea, he felt obsessed So far, so typical as far his methods go.

But this subject posed a unique challenge to the director, one rooted in his own relationship to filmmaking — and once he figured it out, he made something unlike anything else in his oeuvre. The spark of Possible Love came out of a scandal of mass layoffs and their aftermath in Korea — specifically, violent state suppression of public protest.

Lee saw the events foreshadowing a dark future for his country and maybe the world — changes in technology and wealth leaving workers behind. He wrote a screenplay, preemptively attaching two iconic Korean actors with whom he’s previously collaborated: Secret Sunshine ’s Jeon Do-yeon and Peppermint Candy ’s Sul Kyung-gu. They would reunite for this grand modern tragedy.

And then, Lee paused.

“I ended up shelving the project. I started to doubt what kind of meaning this held for me — to be showing the lives of these laborers through a dramatic film,” he says. “When it comes to the lives of people that suffer, I always ask myself: Am I worthy of telling this story?

Deserve Tell Story Updates

Do I deserve to tell this story? And how do I go about it so that I tell it in the right way?” The answer required him to look inward, to tell it as only he authentically could: Through the camera.

“When it comes to the pain and hurt, I believe that it has to be observed in a way that is adjacent to me as a filmmaker, for audiences to figure it out for themselves and to accept it,” Lee says.

“If not, I cannot be candid.” In this final version, co-written with Oh Jung-mi, Possible Love follows the recently laid off and traumatized Ho-seok (Sul) and his wife, the relentlessly hopeful Mi-ok (Jeon), as they encounter a filmmaker named Ye-ji ( Parasite ’s Cho Yeo-jeong) interested in depicting their plight for a documentary. Ye-ji embeds herself deeper and deeper into their lives, leading her and her wealthy businessman husband, Sang-woo (Zo In-sung), to develop a tenuous bond with them.

(The film is not a remake of, or drawn from, Krzysztof Kieślowski’s Dekalog: Nine , as had been previously speculated.

But Lee, generally inspired ) Lee has expanded upon his earlier, unrealized portrait of a couple in crisis to craft a thorny study of two couples — one affected It evolves into a sweeping and provocative examination of contemporary resentments, yearnings and, yes, possibilities. The movie world premieres at the Venice Film Festival next month and will be released S.

theaters on October 23 before streaming November 6. It’s also been selected as South Korea’s official submission for the best international feature Oscar. The all-star Korean cast shares that sentiment.

Here, they had the space to operate at the top of their game, and dug deep. “I have been an actor for quite a long time, and there comes a certain point in your career where you realize there are fewer projects that daunt you,” says Jeon.

“Every time we were faced with a difficulty or challenge, Kyung-gu and I would look at each other and say, ‘Don’t you just love it?

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How often do we get these kinds of challenges nowadays? And how long will it be until we find ourselves on a production like this again?’” “She carries an immense, very intense sense of anxiety in her,” Jeon adds. “I looked at it in the sense that it’s almost like she is constantly holding onto a ticking time bomb.

We all have our own ticking time bombs, and that could lead to many different forms of expression. For Mi-ok, it’s all about hope . She wants to hold onto that hope.” The film weaves a fascinating exploration of wealth and inequality through her vulnerability.

She and Ho-seok get to know Ye-ji and Sang-woo, the disparity between their means made stark for the viewer. Mi-ok is drawn to what they have — not even materially, necessarily, but in the ease and openness they present.

What is it even possible for her to want, when she looks in Sang-woo’s eyes or listens to Ye-ji’s tales of making art?

It’s an intimate way for Lee to ask difficult questions — and wend his way toward an emotionally explosive climax, in a bravura single-setting final act. “I believe that our lives have exceeded that of discussing or exploring the issue of class — and I say that because we now live in a world where the gap is so extreme, so vast that it’s difficult to even call it class really,” Lee says.

“The amount of wealth Sang-woo represents is something that we cannot even dare to fathom.” When Lee returned to this project after initially shelving it, the state of labor had further deteriorated from where he started. “We are now facing a moment in time where labor itself may no longer exist,” he says.

In Possible Love , the director works out how to talk about this, and what to say about such overwhelming inequality, through Ye-ji’s own arc as the movie’s storyteller.

“Her attitude and her desires as a documentary filmmaker — in many ways, what we see in her is close to me,” the director says. Both Jeon and Sul describe Lee as a formative presence in their acting careers.

For Jeon, there is a clear before-and-after with 2007’s Secret Sunshine , for which her wrenching turn won the Cannes Film Festival’s best-actress prize.

“[Lee] allowed me to take a different path in my art,” she says. “After Secret Sunshine , I no longer approached my performances to satisfy the director or anybody else watching. I started asking myself: ‘Is this real?

Is this what I really feel?’” Sul has now worked with Lee six times — but Possible Love brought him right back to their first collaboration, and one of his first movies ever. “I’ve made many films since Peppermint Candy — I’m one of the more experienced actors in the industry in Korea,” he says.

“But when we started shooting Possible Love , I found myself immediately transported to that first film of mine. I got to feel like I was a rookie again. I was back in those shoes.

As actors working with Director Lee, it’s a huge challenge. However, when you see yourself on screen compared to your other projects, it’s so rewarding.” Lee tells his actors not to worry about memorization, to “just talk,” to find the truth in every moment.

He didn’t run many takes on Possible Love , though; he watched and learned as the characters came alive before him.

It’s the way he’s been making movies for decades — with these very stars. That history flows through every frame of Possible Love . “You could almost say that I created the characters with them,” Lee says.

“We have this saying in Korean that roughly translates to: We shared the same heart.

There were no words needed.” Only the camera. In Possible Love , that proved more true than ever. Stay tuned for more exclusive features on this fall’s biggest festival-bound films .