[HanCinema's News] Lee Young-ae Comes Back With "Bring Me Home"

Lee Young-ae returns to South Korean theaters next week with suitably dark subject matter - violence against children. "Bring Me Home" is based on a real-life incident and will open on November 27th.

Lee Young-ae plays the mother of a child that disappeared some six years ago. While other recent films such as "Lucid Dream", "House of the Disappeared" and "The Mimic" also featured parents searching after their missing children, in all of these movies they served mainly as a vehicle for the movie's fantasy concept. "Bring Me Home" looks to have a much more serious and realistic tone.

Lee Young-ae will also be playing a woman feeling into more hostile environments. Her character is a lawyer that's drawn to a seaside town in response to clues, and she finds the locals to be less than accomodating with her goals. Ambiguity is set as to whether this is because they're hiding something sinister or simply find her presence an uncomfortable intrusion.

However, "Bring Me Home" is also less a story about the problems faced by Lee Young-ae's character specifically and more an exploration of the cultural context in which such disappearances occur. Consequently, even as her official goal remains ambiguous she still finds evidence of an unsettling culture regarding children writ large.

It's difficult to guess how much local audiences may take to this theme, or how much local popularity and draw Lee Young-ae still has as an actress. There won't be much competition next weekend in terms of local movies though, and with the main foreign film being explicitly designed with families in mind, "Bring Me Home" may have a shot with the more adult audience.

Written by William Schwartz

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"Bring Me Home" is directed by Kim Seung-woo-I, and features Lee Young-ae, Yoo Jae-myung, Park Hae-joon, Lee Won-geun, Jung Ae-hwa, Kim Joo-hee-I. Release date in Korea: 2019/11/27.