Journey There

Recently widowed Chun hee (Kim Hye-ok) has downsized from the house that she shared with her late husband Hyun chul, and has moved into an apartment building — but Hyun chul’s exquisite grand piano cannot fit in. Her new neighbour, conductor Min jun (Justin H. Min), who has moved from Germany to find the birth mother, offers to look after the piano in his apartment. Together with an orphaned piano prodigy whom Min jun has taken under his wing, they briefly form a family unit.

Kim Jin-yu’s follow-up to Bori (2018) is concerned with mortality and moving on. For it is a film of absences, where everyone is mourning the loss of someone else and burdened with their grief — but it also looks forward to the next generation’s future, lovingly handed down by previous ones.