Return to Seoul

Return to Seoul (; original English title: All the People I'll Never Be) is a 2022 drama film written and directed by Davy Chou, and starring Ji-Min Park as a 25-year-old French adoptee who travels to South Korea, seeking her biological parents. Return to Seoul premiered in the Un Certain Regard section of the Cannes Film Festival on 22 May 2022. The film was selected as the Cambodian entry for the Best International Feature Film at the 95th Academy Awards, and made the December shortlist. It received critical acclaim. Plot Twenty-five-year-old Freddie, who was born in South Korea and adopted by French parents, arrives in Seoul "by accident" after her flight to Tokyo is cancelled. She bonds with Tena, the desk clerk at her hotel, and sleeps with a man she meets with Tena in a restaurant. Tena and a friend of hers tell Freddie she can only contact her biological parents through the Hammond Adoption Center. Although Freddie first insists that she is not in South Korea to find her parents, she goes to Hammond and learns that the agency can send telegrams to her parents, who can respond and allow Hammond to arrange for a rendezvous or ask Hammond not to contact them again, a request Hammond must honor. Freddie asks them to send the telegrams. When her father responds, she travels to Gunsan to visit him, with Tena serving as their translator.