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Directed by LEE Yu-bin
Starring LEE Ju-seung, KONG Ye-ji
Release Date April 24

 

Youth family drama Shuttlecock explores fractured relationships in modern day Korea through a soul-searching road trip and a low budget aesthetic. A young cast wanders with little aim in this independent debut, trying to discover their identities, with the absence of parental figures to guide them in their search.

 

Two young adults and a child are left to their own devices when their parents suddenly pass away in a car accident. A life insurance policy worth USD 100,000 hangs in the balance but the eldest sibling, Eun-joo, makes off with the money, relocating to an unknown location outside of Seoul. The 18-year-old Min-jae, who is not a blood relation of Eun-joo’s, is livid, feeling that the money which is rightfully his has been robbed. By chance he happens to see a video on YouTube which features a girl that looks remarkably like Eun-joo. Min-jae then sets out to find her but he discovers that his younger brother is hiding in the car he plans to use to get to her small country town, even though he has little experience driving.

 

During their journey through the Korean countryside, the two brothers awkwardly get to know each other better, slowly reaffirming their relationship and bonding in the absence of their parents. Forced to face up to adult realities and responsibilities before he is mature enough to do so, Min-jae at first struggles to adapt, venting out his frustrations and confusion.

 

Against a bare autumnal backdrop, the young boys are unencumbered and free to explore their relationship with little to distract them. With a hand-held camera that mostly stays in the mid shot range, the director’s eye lingers on the film’s characters, allowing the dry and largely empty landscape to reflect their loneliness and aimlessness. With a typical indie visual aesthetic and the lack of a gripping narrative, Shuttlecock at times struggles to set itself apart from the crowded low-budget field, but where it does draw notice is its sensitive handling on youth angst, which can breath in the open landscape, away from pressure cooker urban environments, most often Seoul.

 

Shuttlecock debuted at the 18th Busan International Film Festival last October, where it impressed both critics and audiences, winning the NETPAC Award and Citizen Reviewer’s Award. The film marks the debut of LEE Yu-bin, a Chung-ang University graduate who has previously made three short films and worked as a writer on the commercial thriller A Company Man (2012).

 

By Pierce Conran