A Distant Place

This is a film that focuses more on being artistic rather than telling a story. There is little dialog, and the family connections of the group are not well explained. The characters spend a lot of their time just improvising dialog or staring into space, or at objects close by. There is little chemistry between the two male leads so their "relationship" does not come across as realistic. The scenery is beautiful but the story is poorly told! The movie never really achieves its full potential.

In remote rural Korea, Hyun-min works for a sheep / cattle farmer, and has become part of the "family". He also has his kindergarten-age niece Seol, who he prefer to stay around the farm with him. This carefully-curated life starts to unravel when his college boyfriend shows up for an extended visit, creating gossip among the locals. Then his twin sister shows up, wanting to reclaim Seol, who she left "temporarily" in his care 5 years ago. The young girl is nicely bubbly and innocent. The boyfriends are mismatched, in that they don't look like they belonged in college together. There is some nice scenery that calls for a big screen (I saw this in digital on my computer). However, the story is slow-moving, and I find the ending unsatisfactory.