South Korea has been one of cinema’s rising stars for quite some time. It has produced a significant number of the world’s most respected directors, including names like Bong Joon-ho, Lee Chang-dong, Kim Ki-duk, Hong Sang-soo, and Park Chan-wook. Whenever one of these master directors has a new movie coming out, the international film world will be quick to take notice.

It is no surprise then that one of the most anticipated and promising movies of the year is Decision to Leave, the first film by Park Chan-wook in quite some time. Though it will likely go unnoticed by many people in the United States because it is a foreign-language film (blame the “one-inch barrier of subtitles,” as Parasite director Bong Joon-ho called it), Decision to Leave is bound to be one of the top movies this year.

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Director Park Chan-wook Is Impeccable

     Searchlight Pictures / CJ Entertainment

Park Chan-wook is one of the most respected directors in the world today, and for good reason. He first became a major name in South Korea when he released his generation-defining political thriller Joint Security Area (2000). Korean film historians consider this one of the foundational works that helped jumpstart the New Korean Cinema, part of a larger re-invigoration of South Korean media culture that has now, a little over 20 years later, taken the entire planet by storm (think BTS and Squid Game).

In 2003, Park shot to international fame with his twisted revenge thriller Oldboy, which is consistently ranked by fans abroad as one of the greatest South Korean films of all time. His movies have proven since then to be of consistently high quality, especially Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance (2002), Lady Vengeance (2005), and Thirst (2009).

His last international success was The Handmaiden (2016), an erotic psychological thriller set during Japan’s military occupation of Korea before World War II. His new movie, Decision to Leave, is his first film in 6 years, and judging from the media buzz, it will have been worth the wait.

Decision to Leave Is a Twisted Love Story

     Focus Features

In Decision to Leave, a detective falls head-over-heels in love with a widow whose husband recently fell head-over-heels…off a cliff. She’s the prime suspect in his murder investigation. For fans of Park Chan-wook, this should be all we need to hear for us to know it’s going to be a good one.

Several elements of the movie will be familiar to fans of his earlier work. For example, like Oldboy, it’s built around a bizarre and unlikely premise whose energy propels the story forward. It is also, reportedly, a borderline-convoluted plot-heavy mystery that Variety says is “almost magical” in the way its “trail of elegant, glinting clues leads us out.” Finally, it features an unlikely, taboo, or just plain toxic romance, a theme which has been central to The Handmaiden as well as his lesser-known vampire drama Thirst (2009) and his largely forgotten romantic comedy I’m a Cyborg, But That’s OK (2006).

Reviews are especially fixated on Tang Wei’s phenomenal performance as the widow-turned-murder-suspect. Tang is likely best known to international fans for her breakout performance as the seductress spy in Ang Lee’s Lust, Caution (2007), the highest-grossing NC-17 film in history. Her role in Decision to Leave as the questionable love interest is bound to evoke comparisons with her earlier masterpiece.

The Critical Response is Fantastic

     CJ Entertainment

Judging from reviews, Park Chan-wook has certainly not disappointed. Decision to Leave has a 94% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and rave reviews from several prominent outlets. Variety’s Jessica Kiang calls the film masterful and dazzling; The Guardian’s Peter Bradshaw gives it 5 stars; IndieWire’s David Ehrlich calls it “the most romantic movie of the year” and gives it an A-.

By all indications, it will be one of the standout movies of the year. In fact, it has already garnered Park the Best Director award at Cannes Film Festival this May, where it also received a five-minute standing ovation.

It’s likely to be South Korea’s pick for the Best International Film at the next Oscars as well. The way this Oscars category works is that each non-U.S. country gets to pick a single film to submit for Best International Film, and of those submitted, the Academy Awards chooses its favorite. It’s unclear, though, how the Academy will handle Japanese director Hirokazu Kore-eda’s latest film, Broker, which is filmed in the Korean language and features an all-Korean cast — will it be considered as the entry for Japan or for South Korea? If Broker happens to be submitted by Japan, then Decision to Leave will almost certainly be South Korea’s entry.

In any case, expect to see Decision to Leave in many top ten lists at the end of the year. As soon as you get the chance, you should jump to see it.

Decision to Leave released in South Korea on June 29, 2022. It is scheduled for a theatrical release in the U.S. on October 14, 2022, and will be available to stream on MUBI worldwide in late Fall 2022.