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Korean cinema often attracts attention for its genre-bending fare but it's a diverse industry with films tackling an array of topics and targeting different audiences. Korean youth films, for instance, have long been aimed at young people who have traditionally been key cinemagoers, and many have been successful at connecting with this demographic. In the 1960s titles including The Barefooted Young (1964) were a draw for such crowds. More recently in the contemporary era Beat (1997), Whispering Corridors (1998), Volcano High (2001), Sunny (2011), Little Forest (2018), and the current trend in melodramas are features that center on young people and are told in differing ways.

In the independent scene features told from the perspective of young people and children have become prominent over the last 15 years as a new generation of filmmakers have sought to make films focusing on the challenges and difficulties facing millennials, Generations Z and Alpha in Korea.

This week, we will examine some of these titles beginning with the films of Yoon Ga-eun before turning to adolescence in House of Hummingbird (2018) and then a look at the theme of teenage runaways in Lee Hwan's gritty Park Hwa-young (2017) and Young Adult Matters (2021).

The Films of Yoon Ga-eun

Director Yoon Ga-eun has been under the spotlight following the critical and commercial success of her feature The World of Love (2025) that has sold more than 190,000 tickets over a period of several weeks. The film premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival and has since screened at other festivals including London.

Over her career Yoon's films have mostly focused on children including one of her early shorts Sprout (2013) that made its debut at the Busan International Film Festival in Wide Angle: Korean Short Film Competition before being invited to the Berlin International Film Festival where it won the Crystal Bear for Best Short Film.

Sprout optimizes the skills of Yoon to elicit natural performances from her young cast. While her films do feature adults, Yoon's work is primarily told from the point-of-view of children or in the case of The World of Love, teenagers. In Sprout, it follows a young girl played by the superb Kim Su-an who walks around her neighborhood as she tries to find beansprouts for her grandfather's ancestral offering.

It's a delightful 20-minute short film capturing not only this child's adventure but also the warm attachments felt between people (this is called Jeong in Korean) as she meets various people along the way. There's one scene when an elderly woman nurses a cut on the girl's knee after playing with some children. The short is a simple story of cause and effect, but it's told with such a degree of authenticity and care that it becomes hard not to be enamored by its charm that runs throughout her films even when the themes they delve into are darker.

Yoon's The World of Us (2016) would similarly create a lasting impression and premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival. Again, focusing on children, Yoon's feature debut tackles the difficulties children experience in and out of the classroom. It follows two young girls played by Choi Soo-in and Seol Hye-in and the friendship they develop but coming from different social classes this comes to affect which private academies they can attend and the friends they are able to mix with. Told with Yoon's effective realism it's full of her passion to portray the world of children, their struggles, and the emotions they experience.

One of the girl's mothers is played by Jang Hye-jin, a performance that impressed Bong Joon Ho who subsequently cast her in Parasite (2019). Coming in 2016 that also saw The Wailing (2016), The Handmaiden (2016) and The Age of Shadows (2016), it was a title that was seen as one of the best films of the year. It was a sign of what was to come with Yoon soon cementing herself as one of the leading filmmakers of her generation.

The House of Us (2019) finds a similar tone to Yoon's previous films again exploring the troubles experienced by children and yet she is able to fill the feature with immense warmth. The film's narrative revolves around three girls: a 12-year-old girl (Kim Na-yeon) whose parents are constantly fighting and two younger girls (Kim Si-ah, Joo Ye-rim) from a lower social class who are often alone as their parents work in a different city.

The problems and upheaval the girls experience are again conveyed through Yoon's natural style. But not dour, the relationships the girls form and the comfort they find in each other give the film a sense of optimism.

This is also conveyed in The World of Love that is hinted at in the film's title. It centers on a high school student (Seo Su-bin), an older character this time compared to her earlier features. Initially we see her in school and at home energetic and animated, her younger brother is also full of beans. But as the narrative unfolds, we discover that she's dealing with something that happened in her past that comes to impact some of the relationships she comes to form following her reaction to a petition she's asked to sign at school.

It comes to a head in a poignant and unforgettable scene in a car wash when the teenager expresses her anger and pain to her mother. The feelings are raw and underscores Yoon's ability to authentically craft features that deal with complex emotions and from such a young age. Seo Su-bin has also drawn much praise for her performance and could well win awards this year for her role.

Coming-of-age in House of Hummingbird by Kim Bora

Undoubtedly one of the breakout independent films of the 2010s was Kim Bora's House of Hummingbird (2018) that premiered at the Busan International Film Festival before being invited to dozens of festivals overseas including the Berlin International Film Festival and Tribeca Film Festival where it won Best International Feature.

Set in the 1990s, the film follows Eun-hee (Park Ji-hu) who is growing up in Seoul and not getting much attention at home, or at school, and society itself seems preoccupied with other events, she ends up wondering the city and having to deal with adolescence and the changes that brings by herself. That is until she meets a Chinese language tutor played by Kim Sae-byuk who she can confide in and forms a friendship. But tragedy strikes when the Seongsu Bridge collapses in 1994 that would come to impact Eun-hee personally.

It's inspired by Kim's own experiences growing up in the capital in the 1990s, particularly the Seongsu Bridge collapse that led to the deaths of 32 people. The decade of rapid modernization of Seoul and the wider country was marred by preventable disasters, the Sampoong Department Store also collapsed in 1995 killing 502 people.

What's interesting about House of Hummingbird is how the Seongsu Bridge Collapse is explored through a coming-of-age narrative. It's not a disaster film that have featured prominently in the studio system, but the consequences of this tragedy permeate through the latter parts of the story, perhaps in even more lasting ways that some of the films that deal with this theme head on.

Central to the film's success is Park Ji-hu's leading performance as the teenager dealing with adolescence and grief. She would later be cast in the zombie series All of Us Are Dead (2022) that saw her stardom skyrocket.

Runaways in Lee Hwan's Park Hwa-young & Young Adult Matters

A palpable theme in Korean independent films is the plight of runaways and homeless teenagers that is evident in films such as Wild Flowers (2014), Steel Flower (2015), Jane (2016), and Lee Hwan's Park Hwa-young and Young Adult Matters.

What differentiates Lee Hwan's films is the gritty nature of his films; his uncompromising approach unafraid to depict the harsh realities the characters find themselves in. It's a style that mirrors Yang Ik-june's Breathless (2008) with its coarse language and handheld cinematography that was an early independent film that would travel widely on the festival circuit and perform strongly in the domestic box office. Lee started his career in the film industry as an actor and starred in Breathless.

Park Hwa-young debuted at the Busan International Film Festival and follows a group of runaways. At the center of these young people is 18-year-old Park Hwa-young (Kim Ga-hee) who they all call "mom." She wants to be seen as a parental figure despite her brash personality preparing them instant noodles in her home and letting them hangout but the people around her are not really friends; instead, they come to ridicule her. She does get closer to an actress trainee called Mi-jeong (Kang Min-ah) but even this friendship is on shaky grounds.

It portrays a grim world where these young people are essentially abandoned. In one scene the police are called after Hwa-young causes a scene outside a house when she tries to get some money she is owed. The police are seen as completely helpless; they are unable to restrain her, and she eventually receives the money. Ultimately, she has fallen through gaps with little or no support to help her and she is forced to fend for herself â€" together with the other runaways.

It's a theme that's also explored in Lee's follow-up Young Adult Matters that follows a high school student, Se-jin (Lee Yoo-mi) who runs away from school after becoming pregnant and ends up meeting another runaway (Hani). They are later joined by two other runaways and the four seek to survive on the streets and Se-jin needs to find the money for an abortion.

While the tone is similar with its use of language and violence, stylistically it is brighter shot in the summer giving it further vibrancy. Moreover, Lee Yoo-mi who also featured in Park Hwa-young gives an electric and mesmerizing performance adding to the film's intensity mirroring the impact the cast had on Lee's debut.

Lee Yoo-mi would also breakout internationally shortly afterwards starring in the shows Squid Ga​me (2021-2025) and All of Us are Dead (2022) demonstrating how the independent scene was a pivotal training ground for these young performers.

Written by Jason Bechervaise

Edited by kofic