From Guest (2011) and Sprout (2013) to The World of Us and The House of Us, Yoon Ga-eun’s films have consistently returned to childhood as a space of emotional intensity rather than innocence. With The World of Love, her third feature, she continues this exploration, but in a more unsettling form.
Explaining the origins of her long-standing focus, Yoon says: “When I think back to my childhood and teenage years, I realise that many of the strongest experiences I went through at that time – the emotions I felt, the unresolved questions I carried within me – became a driving force behind my filmmaking.” She adds that cinema became a way to process what remained unspoken for years: “It became a space where I could finally bring those emotions out into the open.” Importantly, she stresses that this was never a calculated decision: “I didn’t expect that I would keep making films about childhood and adolescence.”
With The World of Love, however, her approach changed. “It wasn’t primarily about adolescence as a subject,” she explains, “but more about a love story. I was more interested in exploring women’s lived experiences – their first encounters with love and sexuality.” The adolescent perspective enters later, almost as a lens rather than a subject. Ultimately, she says, the film is concerned with something broader: “the experience of violence, love, and life that the character goes through.”
At the centre of the film is Joo-in (sublime performance from Seo Su-bin), whose seemingly stable teenage life slowly begins to fracture after a school petition regarding a convicted sex offender. Alongside her, Jang Hye-jin who delivers a great performance as Joo-in’s mother, a character driven by guilt, protection, and at times, emotional silence. In discussing her approach, Jang reflects on how her process has changed over time: “I think my own life carries things that are necessary for the characters I play, and I’m fortunate that I have those experiences to draw from.” Earlier in her career, she explains, expression was more forceful and external, but this has since changed: “As I’ve grown older, I’ve realised that I don’t need to overstate emotions anymore. If emotions are built up properly, they can still be felt without being exaggerated.”
For Jang, the focus is now on what she calls emotional communication: “Earlier in my life, I focused more on expression itself. Now, what matters more is whether something is truly felt.” She describes her acting as something closer to conversation: “I want my acting to feel like a thoughtful conversation… more like saying, ‘I feel this… it could be this, although maybe not.’”
She also reflects on her long collaboration with directors like Yoon, describing it as a process of mutual growth: “Because of directors like this, I feel like I am growing together with them while learning from their vision and knowledge.” Over time, she has learned to let go of certainty, instead embracing ambiguity in performance. Even on set, she is often described as having a quiet, grounding presence: “Sometimes I’m told I feel like a mother or an older sister, but at other times, they also say they wish they had someone like that in their lives. I hope my presence can reach people emotionally, and that through my acting, I can fill certain emotional spaces that feel missing.”
In addition, the actress confesses how her approach has changed over time: “I find that things actually become simpler. I think the phrase ‘simple is the best’ is quite true. The more I try to do, the more I realise I end up stripping things away. With experience, I naturally start reducing rather than adding. And I feel that this kind of approach fits very well with the directors I work with.”
Without a doubt, with many years of experience behind them, both the director and the actress are striving for something extraordinary. And while it may come through a quieter film, Yoon and Jang clearly know which direction they want to take.
Written and interviewed by Maggie Gogler
Feature image © 2026 View of the Arts
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