Heavy Snow Movie Review: Korean Drama Star Han So-Hee Makes Big-Screen Debut in Evocative Queer Indie Drama

3.5/5 stars

Korean drama star Han So-hee makes her silver screen debut in the queer indie drama Heavy Snow, which had its premiere at this year’s Jeonju International Film Festival in South Korea.

Clearly drawn and evocative, the tale of two young women and their forbidden relationship features Han as a young actress who has just achieved superstardom thanks to her beauty and her roles in hit Korean dramas.

In Heavy Snow Han plays Seol, a star teenage actress who transfers to a performing arts school in Yangyang, a sleepy town known for its surfing in northeastern South Korea.

There she quickly befriends Su-an (Han Hae-in), another student. Su-an is a bit of an outcast and doesn’t think she has the looks to make it as an actress.

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To Su-an’s surprise, the pair grow close and soon they head to Seoul on a forbidden excursion that ends with a forbidden kiss, initiated by Seol.

The film then jumps forward. Su-an has become a star in her own right, but she’s never been able to get over Seol, whose aura of mystery makes her as indecipherable as ever.

Heavy Snow is the sophomore film of director Yun Su-ik, whose first film, Groggy Summer, debuted a decade ago, also at Jeonju. That film demonstrated Yun’s ability to get right into his central character’s head space, relying on close-up handheld shots.

With Heavy Snow, Yun once again gets straight into his characters, but he’s ditched the close-ups in favour of elegant and eloquent imagery and a refined palette of subdued primary colours. With scenes of winter surfing and nighttime neon, the film seduces us with the gentle lap of its imagery.

Naturally many will be curious about how Han So-hee comes across in her first film role – regardless of when it was made – but equally impressive is her co-star Han Hae-in (Ghost Walk), who arguable has the more difficult role.

One of Hae-in’s stand-out scenes comes during another forbidden trip – a drug trip. Compared to the usually hysterical depictions of drug taking in Korean media, this scene gets to the heart of Su-an’s despair, while also being marvellously tense, as she risks being recognised by fans while walking in a daze around Seoul.

Given the film’s short running time and elliptical narrative, many will be left wanting more, but that’s only because the little we get is so compelling.