'A film about what North Koreans escaped to, not what they escaped from'

Getting recommendations from a chatty employee at Olive Young, the cosmetics chain whose brightly lit stores are lined with hundreds of makeup brands across South Korea, may feel ordinary to many. But not for Hye-sun, a North Korean defector in “Hana Korea,” a detail actor Kim Min-ha latched onto when she first read the script for the true-story-inspired film.

“I thought the hollow kind of friendliness you find at places like Olive Young represented a certain side of Seoul,” Kim said at a press conference in central Seoul on Friday. “The [workers] seem friendly, and bring value to you in some way, but it still feels impersonal."

That experience, as well as her relationship with a co-worker who looks after her during work but becomes a stranger the moment the shift ends, made Hye-sun feel the invisible distance built into life in Seoul, the actor — known for her lead role in Apple TV+'s "Pachinko" (2022-24) —  said.

That sense of alienation and loneliness is central to “Hana Korea,” according to the film’s director and screenwriter.

The movie follows Hye-sun, a young woman who escapes North Korea to earn money for her sick mother, whom she leaves behind. After passing through China, she arrives in South Korea and enters the Settlement Support Center for North Korean Refugees — known as Hanawon — where she learns to adapt to life in the country.  The film largely draws from the real-life experience of North Korean defector Choi Hyo-rin as well as the accounts of others. 

"It was potent to make a film about what North Koreans escaped to, not what they escaped from," director Frederik Sølberg said.

"What is the price that people pay for freedom? What is the price that people pay to leave their home for another?" he said.

Sølberg drew on his own experience as a foreigner in Korea to show what the hyper-modern, urban city of Seoul might seem like to someone from the mountainous Ryanggang Province in North Korea.

"The visual portrait of Seoul is inspired by my own sort of arriving as an outsider. I spent an enormous amount of time being alone […] walking around, driving around […] being all by myself in this gigantic city," he said.

His perspective also gave the actors a renewed appreciation for parts of Seoul they might otherwise have taken for granted, such as a rainy night by the Han River, according to Ahn Seo-hyun, who plays a woman born to North Korean parents and raised in China.

As Hye-sun leaves Hanawon, she faces a multitude of problems as she works and studies to become a nurse in the fast-paced capital.

Sharon Choi, who co-wrote “Hana Korea,” said she did not want to turn Hye-sun’s story into a “spectacle,” as stories about North Korean defectors often do. What stayed with her during her research was how many defectors described the emotional difficulty that followed the immediate struggle of settling in.

“We tend to think of defectors’ hardships in terms of practical difficulties after they arrive here: making a living, financial hardship and other concrete problems,” Choi said. “But many people who had gone through that journey told me life actually became harder after they had settled in.”

“They spoke about missing the family they had left behind, the guilt they felt and the loneliness and isolation of not being able to share what they had gone through,” she said. “We tried to look more deeply into those emotional difficulties.”

The filmmaker, who rose to prominence as Bong Joon-ho’s interpreter during the media campaign for “Parasite” (2019), joined the project after its basic structure had already been set and helped shape the story's direction.

Choi added that she hoped viewers would relate emotionally to Hye-sun’s journey as a young woman who endures a painful experience but ultimately overcomes it.

“It is not a big or flashy film, but it is one that can leave a deep resonance, or a small tremor,” Kim said.