Gliding effortlessly from teen comedy to poignant social drama and all the way back and around again, “The World of Love” is a near-flawless triumph for South Korean filmmaker Yoon Ga-eun. Featuring a sensational lead performance by newcomer Seo Su-bin, Yoon’s first feature in six years is a beautifully constructed portrait of a 17-year-old high schooler who’s the funniest and most vivacious girl in class — and also a survivor of sexual assault. Expertly balancing its lighter and darker themes while unfolding with almost documentary-like realism, “The World of Love” rings achingly true at every humorous and heartbreaking turn.
Released domestically on Oct. 22 following its world premiere in Toronto, “The World of Love” is the Korean indie success story of 2025. With 165,000 admissions to date, it has also won the best picture prize at the Korean Film Producers Association Awards. Certain to continue a highly successful festival run that’s delivered the Fipresci Prize at Warsaw and People’s Choice and jury awards at Pingyao, the film has thus far secured distribution deals in France and the key Asian markets of Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan and China, where it is in line to become the first Korean film since “Oh! My Gran” (2020) to receive an official Chinese theatrical release.
In addition to being wonderfully rewarding entertainment, “The World of Love” has great value as an awareness raiser and public conversation starter on the extremely urgent topic of child sexual abuse, and how shockingly widespread it is. The key to the film’s remarkable appeal is an uplifting and hopeful spirit that carries viewers along without ever diminishing or undercutting its examination of how trauma affects the lives of survivors.
That spirit is alive from the moment we meet Lee Joo-in (Seo), a popular, confident and boisterous girl who loves to gossip and laugh with her girlfriends about everything from menstruation and tampons to her famously high turnover of boyfriends. The happy teen lives with her mother, Tae-sun (Jang Hye-jin, “Parasite”), a childcare center owner who drinks more than she should, and kid brother Hae-in (Lee Jae-hee). A delightfully cheeky young chap who enjoys giving impromptu magic shows, Hae-in also intercepts mail addressed to his sister for reasons that are deeply moving when revealed late in the running. Despite the absence of her father, who moved out three years ago and won’t answer Joo-in’s simple text messages, this is a warm home full of laughter and love.
The tone of the film’s opening half-hour is overwhelmingly upbeat and thoroughly engaging. In unhurried observations of Joo-in’s life, we see the bright and bouncy girl having funny conversations with her mother that are more like sister-to-sister gabfests. She visits her taekwondo academy for enthusiastic workouts and lends a hand with a local community volunteer group alongside Mi-do (Go Min-si), a woman in her early 20s who was once a teenage runaway and is cherished by Joo-in as her “life mentor.”
The catalyst for Joo-in’s trauma to resurface is a petition brought to school by male classmate Su-ho (Kim Jeong-sik). As the primary carer for his infant sister who attends Tae-sun’s day care center, Su-ho is concerned about the release from jail of a child sex offender and wants to prevent him from returning to live in the local area. Unwilling to sign like everyone else, Joo-in loudly says she will only add her name if a sentence describing how “sexual assault completely destroys a person’s life” is removed from the petition. It is not long after this classroom flashpoint that Joo-in starts receiving anonymous notes accusing her of being stupid and desperately seeking attention.
As these letters continue and become more unsettling, Joo-in impulsively tells her class she is a survivor of sexual assault. This may not come as a surprise to viewers, but its raw power is shocking nonetheless. Unlike those described in Su-ho’s petition, Joo-in says her life has not been destroyed, and she will not be defined by this traumatic incident.
Yoon exercises masterful tonal control over sensitive material — which includes a brief yet immensely powerful sequence showing the cycle of abuse — as Joo-in struggles to maintain her bright and bouncy personality while confronting the emotional scars of her past. The detailed groundwork laid prior to her revelation pays off handsomely with relationships and perceptions altered as new information is revealed and important events from both the recent past and much earlier are re-evaluated. Yoon never amps anything up or imposes unnecessary urgency on this story. It is utterly compelling and affecting precisely because it unfolds at a perfectly measured pace and is filmed and edited more like a fly-on-the-wall documentary than a conventional narrative drama.
With an unerring eye for how people actually live, speak and act, Yoon ensures that humor still plays a role. Dotted throughout Joo-in’s frequently painful and confusing journey of self-discovery are delightful scenes, such as guffawing at the erotic drawings of her bestie Yura (Kang Chae-yun) and amusing moments of awkward smooching, awkward hot-then-cold sexual fumbling and sweetly innocent fun hanging out with on-again-off-again boyfriend Chan-woo (Kim Ye-chang).
How Joo-in copes and doesn’t cope with navigating her way through this passage of her young life is brought to the screen with tremendous conviction by Seo. From being brave and strong to being illogical and making mistakes and misjudgements that risk friendships — just as teenagers do — Seo’s emotional range is simply amazing and ensures audiences are firmly by her side all the way. Her astonishing scene inside a car as Joo-in and her mother go through a car wash is bound to be the film’s most talked about. Yoon’s masterstroke here is placing the camera on the backseat and giving the audience the point of view of fellow passengers witnessing the most intimate and shattering of moments between a mother and her daughter.
Noted for her ability to elicit remarkable performances from child actors in the highly regarded features “The World of Us” (2016) and “The House of Us” (2019), Yoon enhances her reputation with outstanding direction of young cast members here, many of whom have little or no previous film experience. Yoon must surely now be ranked among the very finest of South Korea’s contemporary filmmakers. Jang Hye-jin, who appeared in both of Yoon’s previous features, also gives one of her best performances as the mother who must find a way to not be consumed by guilt she cannot help but feel, regardless of specific circumstances.
Not every story thread is wrapped up neatly and no such packaging is required for a tale that is all about finding yourself among all the loose ends and frayed strands of life. Instead, Yoon closes her film with a magnificently imagined and executed sequence that reaches deeply into our individual hearts and into the soul of our shared humanity. It’s a moment of true perfection in cinematic storytelling.