The second film by Korean director July Jung, a former assistant to Lee Chang-dong, is conventional in all but structure, but to discuss that structure in detail would give away too much. Nevertheless, Next Sohee continually surprised me, and several times I think I actually felt my jaw drop, while other times I became so anxious for the title character, a teenager who is selected by her high school to participate in an “extern” program that places her in a company where she works toward a full-time position, that I could hardly watch. Like her mentor, Jung takes a prominent social problem and studies how it affects individuals, and the plot of Next Sohee is based on a true story, one that has reportedly inspired two other narrative films. 

Sohee (Kim Si-eun) is first seen dancing by herself in a rented rehearsal room, struggling unsuccessfully to master a particularly tricky move. Though dance is obviously the thing she loves, she doesn’t seem ambitious enough to take it to the next level, even though it quickly becomes clear that she possesses the kind of personality that values her own worth and dignity. It is perhaps this quality that gets her into the extern program because her counselor makes a big deal of how special she should feel that she was selected, and she is happy if a little suspicious, since taking the job requires certain compromises, like wearing makeup and a nice dress to the initial interview. However, once she starts the job in earnest she is deflated. She works in a call center for a telecom company as a customer service rep. The work is punishingly awful as it requires her to listen to complaints and then try to make sure the caller not only doesn’t cancel their plan but extends that plan. She quickly realizes that the terms of her job constitute a scam—her “incentive” pay is put off for reasons of performance evaluation, but actually that condition is put in place to prevent her from quitting, since she soon learns that turnover is very common at the company. All her fellow reps are girls like her who entered the company, and they’re being hired through the program so that the company can pay below minimum wage. When her team leader, a nervous young man who tries to help Sohee adjust, commits suicide after a particularly humiliating episode, she is asked to cover up the reason for the suicide by signing a false statement. And quitting isn’t an option, since remaining with the company is a requirement for graduation.

The second half of the film centers on a police detective named Yoojin who is investigating the scam. She is played by Bae Doona, who also starred in Jung’s excellent first film, A Girl At My Door, as a cop, but a very different one. Yoojin is dour to a fault, seemingly defeated by the lack of any real difference she makes through her work, and the extern case is frustrating because the corruption endemic in the program seems to reach so deep into the system: Companies make deals with schools who work with local governments, all reaping some benefit through the exploitation of young people, usually from disadvantaged households, who have yet to understand the niceties of late-term capitalism. What’s special about Jung’s approach is how straightforward it is. Though unbearably heartbreaking at times, it’s never sentimental. Sohee’s proclivity for dancing is not presented as a dream deferred. It’s simply something that she loves to do, something that defines her in her own mind, and the hardest truth to take is how easy it is for the system to destroy that passion.

In Korean. Opens Aug. 25 in Tokyo at Cinemart Shinjuku (03-5369-2831).

Next Sohee home page in Japanese

photo (c) 2023 Twinplus Partners Inc. & Crankup Film