In 2011, French filmmaker Davy Chou embarked on a journey that he described in our Zoom interview as "an intensity of experience that was so new and rare," one that would effectively serve as the launchpad for his latest film, Return to Seoul. At the time, he was presenting his debut feature-length documentary, Golden Slumbers, at the Busan International Film Festival. A friend of his — who was born in South Korea, but adopted in France when she was a baby — had tagged along and asked Chou to accompany her on a visit to her biological father and grandmother.

To this day, Chou has vivid memories of the actual meeting, specifically, the "shock" of witnessing a scenario he "couldn't have even imagined." "[It was] so unexpected in a way. Unexpected in precision and detail," he said. "[There was] the dryness of the situation, the transformation of my friend from self-confidence and [being] strong-willed to speechlessness and anger, [and] the pain of having her family in front of her, but the impossibility and frustration of not being able to communicate that suffering."

Pulling directly from this moment, as well as his friend's experience with being adopted, Return to Seoul follows 25-year-old Freddie (played by Park Ji-min), a French adoptee, who makes the impulsive decision to travel to South Korea. While on a journey to discover who she is and where she belongs, she reaches out to her biological parents for the first time through the agency that facilitated her adoption. Fortunately, her biological father accepts her offer to reconnect. Little does Freddie know, their encounter will forever alter the course of her life as she finds herself in uncharted waters, mentally and emotionally.

Park Ji-min Had No Prior Acting Experience

Park had no interest in playing Freddie at first (according to her December 2022 interview with IndieWire). Indeed, she had had no acting experience prior to her meeting with Chou. A visual artist based in France, Park was only introduced to Chou via a mutual friend as a sort of cultural consultant for the director while he was writing Return to Seoul's script: though she herself wasn't adopted, she was born in Korea and moved to France when she was nine, which mirrored Freddie's own background. That said, something sparked for Chou during their meeting, and he eventually persuaded Park to do a camera test.

"It was obvious she was not feeling very happy to be there," Chou said of the video his casting director sent him of Park (he was in Cambodia at the time). "In a normal casting process, you would doubt the desire of the person to do the film, but, somehow, a feeling of not wanting to be there kind of equaled the character." In her tape, Park was asked to improvise some lines as Freddie, one of which included saying "Hello, it's Freddie" as if she had just landed in Korea. Significantly, it was this line that won Chou over. "It just made sense for me," he added.

Related: Return to Seoul Review: A Rumination on Identity, Adoption, and What It Means to Belong

In addition to Return to Seoul, movies like Captain Phillips and Under the Skin have been notable for their performances by non-actors. Moreover, Chou himself is no stranger to hiring first-time actors, having cast locals in his 2016 debut feature Diamond Island. "You need to have a different strategy when this happens," he said of his approach to, firstly, convincing Park to play Freddie and, secondly, working with her to understand the different aspects of the role. "We met in Paris, and we talked for three hours in Belleville, close to her artist workshop, and it was mainly talking about life. I knew if I was only talking about the film, trying to get something from her, she would not have received it well, so it was really about two friends meeting — which I really felt."

Collaborating with Park Was a Challenge (and Lesson Learned)

Woman smiles in group.
Aurora Films

It wasn't until June 2021, after Park had accepted the role and read the script for Return to Seoul, that she and Chou really started working together on building the character. And it started with lengthy discussions about Freddie — specifically, the way she was written — which came as a sort of surprise to Chou. "I was thinking it would be a short discussion," he said of Park's initial request to sit down together with the script. However, she had detailed questions and comments about different aspects, ranging from Freddie's motivation to underlying sexism in her treatment by the male characters.

Related: 12 Movies About Women Writers and Artists, Ranked

In the end, a short discussion quickly became an impassioned debate on both sides — "Things got a bit tense." — and, for Chou, more importantly, a lesson in listening. "I understood, because she also said it aloud, that she felt pain that I was trying to win the argument. Rather, what she was expecting was for me to listen to what she had to say as an Asian woman living in France." This would ultimately cement Park's trust in Chou (per her interview with The Los Angeles Times).

Return to Seoul may be his sophomore feature, but the collaborative experience he had with Park, challenges and all, is one he'll never forget. "It took me out of my comfort zone. It did change me," he said. "I understood that the experience [she's] bringing to me is richer and [more] profound and truer to the experience [of the character], and I need to step back and listen and adapt. And that's what I did."

Return to Seoul is now playing in select theaters.