Little Forest

Yim Soon-rye's film is adapted from Daisuke Igarashi's manga, first published in 2002 and already filmed in Japan as a two-part feature; this is the Korean version. Hye-won, played by Kim Tae-ri, fails the national teaching exam, quits her part-time job in Seoul and returns to the village where she grew up. The film follows the four seasons she spends there and consists almost entirely of cooking: what grows in the field, recipes made according to the season, notes her mother left behind. The most notable thing about the production is how it was shot. The crew returned to the same place each season across a full year, so the change in climate is genuinely recorded. That determines the film's entire rhythm; nothing is hurried. It opened on 28 February 2018 and took around eleven million dollars. Who it is for: viewers who like slow-living stories, food films and Kim Tae-ri. Who it is not for: anyone wanting plot or conflict, which the film never engages.