Adoption is a recurring theme in Korean dramas, often used as an emotional plot device that has little to do with reality. It usually goes something like this: fictional transracial adoptees who grew up overseas return to South Korea for whatever reason the storylines dictate. This is played out in popular shows like "Vincenzo," where Song Joong-ki's titular character is a Mafia-raised adoptee who returns to Korea in search of gold (literally). And in this year's "Love in Contract," Park Min-young's character is adopted by Korean parents, who ship her off to the United States before summoning her back to Seoul to marry into a rich conglomerate's family. These K-dramas all share a common trait: despite having been raised overseas in countries where Korean isn't the dominant language, these adoptees return to their birth country miraculously speaking fluent Korean and fitting right into Korean culture. It's almost as if they had never left their motherland.
In the superb "Return to Seoul" – which is Cambodia's Oscar entry for the Best International Film category – French Cambodian filmmaker Davy Chou ("Golden Slumbers") takes a deeper look at what it means to be one such adoptee. While some of the narratives – like finding your birth family in days, or even meeting a Korean who can speak with you in a language other than Korean fluently – almost never happen in real life, the story rings true more often than not because of its candid and bittersweet insights.
