Decision to Leave (2022)

Decision to Leave (2022)

A strange but endlessly compelling love story-slash-mystery from South Korean master Park Chan-wook

The Very Best

8.1

Movie

South Korea
English, Korean, Mandarin
Crime, Drama, Mystery, Romance
2022
PARK CHAN-WOOK
Ahn Seong-bong, Cha Seo-won, Choi Dae-hoon
138 min

What it's about

From a mountain peak in South Korea, a man plummets to his death. Did he jump, or was he pushed? When detective Hae-joon arrives on the scene, he begins to suspect the dead man’s wife Seo-rae. But as he digs deeper into the investigation, he finds himself trapped in a web of deception and desire.

The take

A twitchy, uncomfortable noir film for the digital age, Decision to Leave blends the trappings of a restless police procedural with an obsessive forbidden romance. Here, director Park Chan-wook flips every interrogation and piece of evidence on its head, pulling us away from the whodunit and towards the inherently invasive nature of a criminal investigation. It's a movie that remains achingly romantic even if everything about the central relationship is wrong. For detective Hae-jun and suspect Seo-rae (played masterfully by Park Hae-il and Tang Wei, respectively), the attraction between them is built entirely on distrust and suspicion—illustrating the danger of falling for the idea of someone rather than the person themself.

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