Throughout the nearly decade-long surge of Western interest in Korean popular culture, the theme of class inequality has remained at the forefront. Parasite became the first non-English-language film to win the Academy Award for Best Picture by chronicling a low-income family's scheme to symbiotically latch onto a wealthy household. Squid Game topped Netflix's global charts with its dystopian tale of financially desperate contestants playing deadly children's games for the chance to win millions. Then last year's No Other Choice transplanted Donald E. Westlake's 1997 thriller novel The Ax to modern South Korea, telling the story of a man whose best chance of escaping unemployment is to literally eliminate the competition.

Each of these stories approaches class through a genre framework, punctuated by dramatic swings between humor, violence, and heightened suspense. Writer-director Lee Chang-dong takes a different path with Possible Love, his first film since 2018's Burning. Rejecting those more crowd-pleasing distractions, Lee forces us to confront what life near the bottom of the social ladder actually looks like: a state of perpetual struggle with no easy escape through elaborate murders or sadistic game shows. This is simply the way things are, and it is no wonder that optimism appears to be in such short supply around the world.

Before presenting a single image, Lee opens the film with a black screen bearing the words "Thou shalt not covet," the final of the Ten Commandments. Unlike the other nine, which prohibit outward actions such as theft, murder, and dishonesty, this commandment turns inward, policing desire itself. In a modern society where laws and social norms have largely curtailed those external threats, it is often internal struggles that slowly eat people alive.

Mi-ok (Jeon Do-yeon) and Ho-seok (Sul Kyung-gu) are two such walking corpses, crushed beneath the weight of capitalism. Ho-seok was once a prominent union leader at the factory where he worked, spearheading an extended sit-in strike that was ultimately violently crushed. Beyond the physical injuries he sustained, Ho-seok never truly recovered. He drifts through life in a state of emotional paralysis, staring vacantly into the distance and lacking any meaningful ambition for the future.

One of Lee's most ingenious yet understated choices are that the couple no longer fit comfortably into their old clothes. Their outfits hang awkwardly from their thin, hunched frames as they attend the funeral of a friend who took his own life in the aftermath of the strike. There scarcely seems to be a difference between the living and the dead. At the service, they encounter Ye-ji (Cho Yeo-jeong of Parasite), a documentary filmmaker working on a project examining the families affected by the labor dispute. Because he serves as the connective thread linking all of her subjects, she views Ho-seok as the final piece needed to complete her cinematic puzzle.

Ho-seok, however, vehemently refuses the idea of being interviewed. The wounds remain too fresh. Undeterred, Ye-ji shifts her focus to Mi-ok, who becomes both a subject and a friend. Their relationship develops naturally through shared experiences and mutual kindness. But Lee continuously raises an uncomfortable question: Is Ye-ji genuinely interested in Mi-ok as a person, or is their friendship merely a means of getting closer to Ho-seok?

This is only one of the many thorny questions Lee and co-writer Jungmi Oh, who also collaborated on Burning, put forward. What happens once Ye-ji's documentary is finished? Given the vast disparities in social status and financial stability between the two couples, can these relationships truly be considered friendships at all? Ye-ji carries a purse worth more than five million won, roughly $4,000 USD, while Mi-ok's wedding ring barely stays on her finger because she has lost so much weight from not being able to afford to eat as much. If the relationship is not entirely genuine, then what exactly is each side receiving in return? The arrangement feels transactional. Ye-ji draws artistic value from Mi-ok and Ho-seok's suffering, while they gain temporary access to a level of comfort and security that has been stripped away from them. After all, it takes labor to make someone else's paradise possible.

Importantly, Lee never simplifies matters by turning Ye-ji into a villain. Cho Yeo-jeong plays her with sincere compassion and curiosity. Yet even the noblest intentions invite scrutiny. What does Ye-ji ultimately hope to gain from this project? During a presentation seeking additional support from the state arts board, she is questioned about her focus on labor when robots and artificial intelligence represent the popular topics of the moment. Meanwhile, Ye-ji's husband Sang-woo (Zo In-sung) serves as another symbol of this divide. Consistently dressed in expensive clothing and driving a luxury vehicle, he is described as projecting a Steve Jobs-like aura, a comparison that is not entirely flattering given Apple's long-running history of labor controversies and factory-worker exploitation.

At 164 minutes, Possible Love takes the long road to reach a short point, which is that a wrong life cannot be rightly lived. As compelling as its ideas and themes are, there remains a lingering sense that they could have been communicated more effectively through a shorter runtime. It is that previously mentioned refusal to employ narrative tricks that makes Lee’s film much less “entertaining” than his contemporaries. Much of the filmmaking adopts an observational, almost documentary-like style, emphasizing realism over dramatic flourish. Still, it is entirely possible that Possible Love will reveal itself to be a masterpiece to me with time, as it’s not like these themes will be getting any less potent over the years.

This review was originally published from the North American premiere at the 2026 Toronto International Film Festival. Netflix will release Possible Love in select theaters on October 23rd, followed by its streaming premiere on November 06th.