For those who have lost someone to a violent crime, the passage of time does not necessarily bring the consolation that others so readily expect, especially when the person responsible has completed their sentence and returned to ordinary life, while the bereaved are left to contend with consequences that no legal judgement can undo.
In The Journey to Gyeong-ju, director Kim Mi-jo approaches the enduring consequences of such injustice through an unlikely combination of family drama as well as a revenge thriller; you will also find dark humour along the way. Some of the situations the characters find themselves in are genuinely amusing, although the circumstances that have brought them together are so distressing that it is difficult to laugh at their misfortunes without remembering the terrible loss that has driven them to such extremes.
Selected as the Opening Gala presentation of the 21st London Korean Film Festival, The Journey to Gyeong-ju will receive its UK premiere at BFI Southbank on 2 November 2026, followed by a Q&A with Kim Mi-jo and acclaimed actress Lee Jung-eun. The film previously had its world premiere at the 45th Hawaiʻi International Film Festival in October 2025, before screening at the Florence Korea Film Fest in 2026, where it received the Audience Award. Its theatrical release in South Korea followed on 26 August 2026.
The film depicts Ok-sil (Lee Jung-eun), a mother whose youngest daughter, Gyeong-ju, was murdered during a school trip eight years earlier. The tragedy also cost the family its father, whose inability to come to terms with the loss and the pursuit of justice ended in suicide. Although the perpetrator has served his sentence, the family’s ordeal has never reached anything resembling a conclusion. Ok-sil’s three surviving daughters, Jang-ju (Gong Hyo-jin), Young-ju (Park So-dam) and Dong-ju (Lee Yeon), have each attempted to continue their lives, but their mother’s grief remains an inescapable presence. When the family sets off for Gyeongju in a battered yellow minibus, dressed in matching T-shirts, the excursion initially resembles an eccentric attempt at commemorating the dead girl’s birthday. Their actual intentions are considerably more sinister; they have decided to take revenge on the man responsible for her murder.
Kim understands the absurdity of placing four women, none of whom appears naturally equipped for murder, in a situation requiring precisely that. Their disagreements, nervous reactions and occasional incompetence provide much of the film’s early humour, but the comedy is never entirely innocent. These are ordinary people contemplating an extraordinary act of violence, and the distance between their intentions and their ability to carry them out is amusing and distressing. It is a difficult balance to maintain, especially when the central tragedy is so severe, yet Kim generally handles these contradictions very well.
What gives the film its emotional substance is the understanding that the four women are not united by grief in quite the way they might imagine. Their loss has produced different forms of resentment and responsibility, some of which have little to do with the murderer himself. Revenge offers them a common objective, perhaps the first in years, but it cannot resolve the tensions that have accumulated within the family. The journey consequently becomes as much an examination of their relationships as an attempt to confront the man who destroyed their lives.
The performances are essential to making these conflicting emotions convincing, and Lee Jung-eun is unquestionably the film’s greatest asset. As Ok-sil, she portrays a woman whose maternal identity has become inseparable from the child she lost. There is an almost frightening determination to her character, although Lee never allows that determination to conceal the exhaustion underneath and what makes her portrayal so affecting is the possibility that Ok-sil no longer knows how to live without the anger that has sustained her for eight years.
Gong Hyo-jin, meanwhile, brings a more emotional complexity to Jang-ju, the eldest daughter, whose responsibilities extend beyond the practical difficulties of the family’s mission. As the sibling expected to remain dependable when everyone else is struggling, Jang-ju represents a familiar and frequently overlooked consequence of family tragedy – the person who must continue functioning because there is nobody else willing or able to do so. Gong gives the character an appealing mixture of exasperation, affection and weary pragmatism, as though her outward composure has developed over years of putting other people’s needs before her own
Park So-dam, another familiar face from Parasite, plays Young-ju, whose legal education provides an interesting contradiction within a family preparing to commit murder. Her knowledge of the law ought to make her the strongest advocate for restraint, yet intellectual understanding offers little protection against the irrationality of personal loss. Park approaches the character with an intelligence, and the tension between Young-ju’s rational instincts and her loyalty to her family becomes one of the film’s more interesting internal conflicts. Lee Yeon, as Dong-ju, supplies an entirely different temperament; a former wrestler, Dong-ju is impulsive, physically capable and considerably less inclined to contemplate the consequences of her actions. Lee Yeon makes her an entertaining presence – beneath the character’s confrontational manner is another young woman whose life has been shaped by an absence she cannot properly articulate.
Together, the four actresses establish a credible family dynamic, with irritation, affection, and unspoken familiarity. Their characters interrupt, disagree, and occasionally behave with astonishing foolishness, but hfalu xcefxsqcv sruog a recognisable history. The film is at its most persuasive when it allows these ordinary interactions to continue even as the family finds itself in extraordinary circumstances.
Byun Yo-han, known for Mr. Sunshine and Hansan: Rising Dragon, plays Baek Sang-hyun, the man responsible for Gyeong-ju’s murder, and although his screen time is limited, his presence is unsettling.
Kim’s interest in women who have been failed by the institutions supposedly responsible for protecting them is not new. Her debut feature, Gull, which received the Grand Prize in the Korean Competition at the Jeonju International Film Festival, concerned an older woman pursuing justice after experiencing sexual violence. The Journey to Gyeong-ju, her first commercial feature, returns to questions of institutional inadequacy and the personal cost of seeking redress, although this time she employs a more accessible and occasionally outrageous narrative.
The Journey to Gyeong-ju is not simply about revenge, but about a family that has spent eight years struggling with a loss that has changed their lives forever, leaving each woman to deal with her grief and anger in her own way. Kim understands that even those who have suffered the same tragedy may find it difficult to understand one another, and she never suggests that justice or forgiveness can easily put things right.
Lee Jung-eun gives a superb performance, supported by equally strong work from Gong Hyo-jin, Park So-dam and Lee Yeon, whose portrayals make the family’s grief, frustration and complicated relationships painfully believable. Although the film has its weaker moments, it leaves an impression, mainly in its depiction of four women who have spent years trying to come to terms with a terrible loss while everyone around them has simply carried on with their lives.
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Written by Maggie Gogler
Image courtesy of Lotte Entertainment
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