Unlikely stars, ages 7 and 78, elevate S. Korean film

By Kevin Thomas
Los Angeles Times

•	'The Way Home' PG (for mild thematic elements and language) 80 minutes In Korean, with English subtitles

Eschewing professional actors, Lee gambled on little Seung-Ho Yoo to play pugnacious 7-year-old Sang-woo and on 78-year-old Eul-Boon Kim, who had never even seen a movie, to play his grandmother. As Lee has said, she got lucky, but she also displays skill in drawing natural portrayals from her stars that have not a trace of self-consciousness.

A tired, forlorn woman (Hyo-Hee Dong) arrives in a remote mountain region on a scruffy bus with her little son in tow. With no advance notice and few words, the mother, having trudged up a rugged mountainside with her boy, dumps the kid on her own mother, who's mute and bent over with age.

She has not seen or contacted her mother since she ran off to Seoul with a local boy at age 17. He abandoned her and their son long ago, and her little shop has failed, leaving her in debt and unemployed. She promises her mother she'll return in about two months, by which time she expects to have landed a job and gotten her affairs in order.

Sang-woo, who bears all the marks of a kid who has been alternately neglected and indulged, understandably feels abandoned and is hit by cultural shock — what, no pizza, burgers or KFC? He reacts with predictable rage and doesn't realize or care that his grandmother, although she cannot speak, can hear him when he exclaims to her that she's stupid. His grandmother unwaveringly responds to this and much more bratty behavior with an unconditional love.

The woman lives under minimalist conditions in what is little more than a ramshackle hut clinging to the hillside. The presence of a TV, although never seen turned on, suggests she must have some sort of power source, but she most definitely has no plumbing.

As surely difficult and painful as it must be for her to get around, she reveals a generous, caring nature toward others. She is a woman of dignity, at peace with herself, and she's reached the point in life at which it's hard to tell whether she simply accepts her lot in life uncomplainingly or has merely become resigned to it.

While we're wondering whether she will ever have any impact on her irascible grandson, he in turns has further difficulties relating to a neighboring girl (Kyung-Hoon Min) and boy (Eun-Kyung Yim).

"The Way Home" is simplicity itself, and Lee is alert to the details and incidents of everyday life to sustain the film with wryly amusing observations and much affection, even for the boy, who after all has been asked to go through a singularly difficult adjustment. The first South Korean film to receive major studio distribution, "The Way Home" is a loving little film of considerable appeal.

On the web: http://www.paramountclassics.com/wayhome/