Netflix to Stream Lee Chang-dong’s Films Globally as ‘Possible Love’ Awards Campaign Heats Up

Netflix is offering global cinephiles a deeper dive into the work of Korean master Lee Chang-dong as it ramps up the awards-season rollout of his acclaimed new drama Possible Love.

Fresh off Possible Love’s Silver Lion Grand Jury Prize win at the Venice Film Festival over the weekend, the streamer said Monday that it is expanding the availability of all six of Lee’s previous features across various international markets. The rollout includes Green Fish (1997), Peppermint Candy (1999), Oasis (2002), Secret Sunshine (2007), Poetry (2010) and Burning (2018), although availability and timing vary by country.

Green Fish and Secret Sunshine began streaming in late August in Italy, the U.K., France, Australia and New Zealand, while Peppermint Candy and Oasis launched on Netflix in Italy and Spain on Sept. 4. Poetry and Burning are slated to become available on the service in markets including the U.S., Canada, Japan, Australia and New Zealand. Netflix says the films will be offered with subtitles in as many as six languages, depending on the territory.

Taken together, the films represent one of Korean cinema’s most beloved bodies of work. Lee made his feature debut with Green Fish in 1997, followed by Peppermint Candy, which screened in Directors’ Fortnight at Cannes in 2000. Oasis earned Lee the Silver Lion for best director at Venice in 2002, with star Moon So-ri receiving the festival’s Marcello Mastroianni Award. Jeon Do-yeon later won best actress at Cannes for Lee’s Secret Sunshine in 2007, and Poetry took Cannes’ best screenplay prize in 2010. And Lee’s most recent feature, Burning, competed for the Palme d’Or in 2018 and landed on many critics’ best-of lists that year.

Possible Love premiered to widespread acclaim in Venice before taking the festival’s Silver Lion Grand Jury Prize Saturday. The win marked the first time a South Korean film has received the honor and the first prize for a Korean film at Venice since Kim Ki-duk’s Pieta won the Golden Lion in 2012.

The searing drama reunites Lee with two of his most celebrated early collaborators: Jeon, the Cannes best actress winner from Secret Sunshine, and Sul Kyung-gu, who starred in Peppermint Candy and Oasis. They are joined by rising leading man Zo In-sung and Parasite co-star Cho Yeo-jeong.

Possible Love follows two married couples from opposite ends of Korea’s class divide whose lives become unexpectedly intertwined. Blue-collar Ho-seok (Sul), a man traumatized by losing his factory job after a workers’ strike, lives a quiet life with his determinedly optimistic wife, Mi-ok (Jeon). A chance encounter brings them into contact with Ye-ji (Cho), a documentary filmmaker working on a project about displaced laborers, and her affluent husband, Sang-woo (Zo). The two wives soon strike up a tentative friendship as Ye-ji expresses interest in telling Ho-seok’s story — but the group dynamic grows increasingly complicated by their extreme class differences and subtly conflicting desires.

South Korea selected Possible Love as its submission for the best international feature Oscar, and Netflix is positioning the film as one of its major awards contenders of the season.

The film opens theatrically in South Korea on Sept. 23, followed by Australia and New Zealand on Oct. 22 and the U.K., Japan, U.S. and Canada on Oct. 23. It will launch globally on Netflix on Nov. 6.