Name: Christian Karl Luneta

Course & Section: MMA 201

Subject: TCWN01G

Professor: Mr. Jumel G. Estrañero

The Way Home

I. BACKGROUND OF THE FILM

The way home was written and directed by Jeong-Hyang Lee. Her grandmother died before
she was able to create the script, never knowing she was making a piece influenced by her. With
only the main lead, Sang-woo as a talented actress, the budget was incredibly limited. The rest of
the cast were non-professional and Jeetongma locals were the bulk. Lee asked an expert and a
researcher who had written about the remote villages of North Korea to try to find the right
setting for her rural novel. Jeetongma was the proposed one, and she ended up scouting the final
settlement. She knew that the mud houses and curvy dirt roads matched the description when she
arrived. Jeong-Hyang Lee, one of Jeetongma 's eight residents, said it was a blessing that she
stumbled across the actor who would play the grandmother. At first, the woman was not keen on
playing one of the pivotal roles, as she was afraid she would be too slow. Lee told her that a large
part of the character is slowness, eventually persuading her to take the ole. In the first year of its
release, the movie grossed $20 million performing the big budget box office hits to everyone's
surprise. The Way Home placed Jeong-Hyang Lee on the map as one of the top female North
Korean directors after earning such recognition and awards.

II. BODY

"The Way Home," a short, sweet South Korean movie, is the story of a spoiled young city
boy sent to live with his peasant grandmother in a tiny rural village. The comparison is not clear
between these two characters and their ways of looking at the world. Sang-woo (Yoo Seung-Ho)
is, as can be, wide-eyed and adorable, but he is also spoiled and materialistic, addicted to his
portable video game unit and wishing for fast food in the American style.
His grandmother (Kim Eul-Boon, so gnarled and bent that she walks parallel to the ground with
her torso, lives in a ramshackle hut alone. She does not talk and is at least highly simple-minded,
if not physically deficient.
The boy whose mother has lost her work is aggressive to his new guardian at first, but
eventually, and not unexpectedly at all, he becomes fond of her. And if he takes harsh advantage
of her kindness, she never grows cross with him or turns away. Her instinctive, unstinting
kindness tends to rub off on him, and he unwillingly finds in himself similar attributes.

III. ANALYSIS

In this film, which was written and directed by Lee Jeong-hyang, there are some beautiful,
quiet moments of feeling. One entertaining sequence includes the effort by the grandmother to
fulfill the appetite of the boy for the "Kentucky Chicken" he requests. She spends a great deal of
her day — and certainly more money than she could easily afford — procuring a live chicken
that she introduces to him in a metal jar, whole and boiled.
Many of the scenes between her and Sang-woo unfold without dialogue because the
grandmother is deaf, and Ms. Lee has a fragile visual sense. But the plot, touching as it is, does
not have enough emotional resonance or a range of events to support a function, and it feels a
little long even at 85 minutes. Also, the idea is a little small.
The grandmother looks a lot too old to be the parent of the polished young mother of Sang-
woo (Dong Hyo-Hee), who endures a long, dusty trip in a Seoul office worker's high heels and
sweater outfit. That she is the child of this mute, ancient lady, who in a fairy tale has the
enchanted, spooky aura of a character, poses some curious questions that are never addressed in
the film: who was her father? Why was she leaving? But in the end, the characters' family history
and psychology lie beyond the purview of what is simply a small, romantic and often adorable
fable.

IV. CONCLUSION

The Way Home is a great, chill and entertaining movie. At First I am very disgusted in Sang-
woo for the reason of he is so disrespectful and stupid. He doesn’t have respect to the elderly
specially to her grandmother but also to her mother. But even her grandmother is muted she
always take care and give what sang woo wants. I am emotionally when her grandmother is
working so hard to only buy things what his grandson wants. Because of the character
development, I enjoyed this movie. Sang-woo appeared to be terrible at the beginning, born as a
human, but gradually he grew to like his grandmother and love her. This improvement was
gradual, and he was always a spoiled brat(like with the chicken) even though he seemed to get
marginally nicer. Even though he was a dick to her for much of the movie, I really liked how the
grandmother was gentle with him. This only says that Grandmother love is the best and I am
agree with that. In the end, I wanted grandma to die, but I was more surprised by how it worked
out. When he showed her his Cubix superhero story cards, it was emotional. I think when he was
younger, mom spoiled the kid and should treat him with the reverence he treated his grandma, at
least that's how I'd do it if I were a dad and my kid treated his grandmother that way.

Reference:

https://education.burnsfilmcenter.org/education/classrooms/168/projects/791

https://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/15/movies/film-in-review-the-way-home.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bF_heBmg9Ss&t=6s