Lee Chang Dong Confronts Camera's Ethics in New Film 'Possible Love'

Director Lee Chang Dong, best known for his 2018 film "Burning," brought his seventh feature, "Possible Love," to the New York Film Festival this month, revisiting a 2009 mass layoff in South Korea that preceded a wave of suicides among former employees, The Verge reported.

The film opens on a title card reading "Thou shall not covet," a line that frames nearly every relationship that follows. Lee's camera then settles on characters who covet each other's jobs, clothes, spouses, and social standing — a structure the director uses to approach, rather than restage, the labor conflict at the story's center.

What is 'Possible Love' about?

The film follows Mi-ok, played by Jeon Do-Yeon, the wife of a laid-off husband, Ho-seok, played by Sul Kyung-gu. At the funeral of a colleague who died by suicide, the couple meets documentary filmmaker Ye-ji, played by Cho Yeo-jeong, and her wealthy husband, Sang-woo, played by Zo In-sung. The two couples' lives entangle from there, according to The Verge's account of the plot.

"Thou shall not covet."

What real events inspired the film?

Lee's screenplay draws on a 2009 episode in which a Korean conglomerate fired roughly a third of its staff — 2,600 employees — after which multiple former workers died by suicide, The Verge reported. Rather than dramatize the layoffs themselves, "Possible Love" begins in their aftermath, a period the outlet describes as murkier and harder to resolve than the acute crisis that preceded it.

How does this fit Lee Chang Dong's other films?

The Verge places "Possible Love" in a line of Lee movies that engage class, labor, and religion, along with what the outlet calls "compressed modernity" — rapid economic and social change compressed into a short span, a recurring subject in Lee's work since his earlier films. The outlet notes Lee manages these themes without the films feeling didactic.

What did Lee Chang Dong tell The Verge?

Reporter May Jeong interviewed Lee in New York, with the conversation conducted in Korean and translated into English, according to The Verge. The published exchange was framed around four subjects: how Lee arrived at his political views, the porousness between people, the properties of the camera as a tool that captures others, and his experience working with Netflix. The outlet's first question noted that Jeong, like Lee, is from Daegu, and asked how that shaped his outlook — a line of inquiry The Verge's report frames as a way into Lee's broader political formation.

What should readers watch for next?

• Additional festival screenings or a theatrical release date for "Possible Love," which The Verge's report does not specify beyond its New York Film Festival appearance.
• Further detail on Lee's comments about working with Netflix, referenced in The Verge's interview setup but not elaborated in the excerpt reviewed.
• Critical response to the film's handling of the 2009 layoffs, given Lee's history of addressing Korean social upheaval without, in The Verge's framing, resorting to easy moralizing.

The Verge's full interview, linked above, contains Lee's direct answers on the camera's ethical weight and his political education — subjects the outlet frames as central to understanding why he chose to film this story from its aftermath rather than its height.