Review of Made in Korea, directed by Ra. Karthik

If you’re new here, and stumbled upon this blog through the mythical powers of the Internet, welcome! I know a lot of visitors to my website are people who randomly come upon this website through search engines like Google, but I also do have a lot of visitors who come back. Regardless: my name is Ashley, and I started this blog in order to keep track of everything I’m coming across in the world.

I feel like a lot of my blog introductions, especially when it comes to movies, have been lamenting on the fact I don’t have a ton of time lately. I used to work as a film critic (which, in fact, was so incredibly underpaid that I now make more off of this blog’s display ads than I ever did publishing anywhere else), and then when I was in graduate school I was writing a lot about film, so I used to watch so many movies.

But now I work an 8-5, come home, and then doom scroll my evenings away instead of watching the movies I used to love so dearly. And recently I realized I want to stop doing that, so I’ve set limits on my phone and am fully prepared to sit back and watch more movies and read more books in order to feed my brain.

I’m finding that one way to get more movies and books in is to find things that I’m genuinely excited to watch. Before I used to plan everything out and now I kind of just go off of vibes in the end. When I saw Made in Korea had been released on Netflix, I kind of just went for it and watched it on the spot.

This review is a little late, but better late than never, am I right? Let’s get into the review.

A young woman from Tamil Nadu decides to follow her dreams and relocate to Korea—but that doesn’t come without its struggles.

Our main character in this movie is Shenba, a young woman from Tamil Nadu who dreams of going to South Korea. She grows up with a deep appreciation towards Korean culture, music, and society, and now, after getting an education in hotel management and helping her parents out at their restaurant, she agrees to move to Chennai with her boyfriend Mani.

Some time passes away from their hometown, then Mani tells Shenba that they are going to move to Korea. She gets an offer to work at a hotel there, while Mani decides that he will find a job once her arrives. But when the day comes, she’s alone in the airport and on the plane. Mani calls and assures that he’s coming, but then Shenba’s mother calls.

She said that Shenba’s father gave Mani his savings to take with them, and he steals the money to go to Mumbai and starts a business. Shenba continues on to Seoul, where she stops a girl from being hit by her boyfriend and ends up in jail. Jun-jae, a vlogger, was vlogging in that moment and could prove her innocence.

Shenba then discovers her offer letter is a scam, then Jun-jae helps her find somewhere to live and take care of a disabled elderly woman named Yeon-ok for her son and his wife. Yeon-ok reveals she’s not disabled, then asks Shenba to take her out. Shenba then proposes starting a restaurant with Yeon-ok, who agrees. The restaurant is fairly successful.

Then Shenba helps her friends film a music video, giving everything she had saved in Korea so they could achieve their dreams. However, everything good must come to an end: Yeon-ok’s son discovers what’s happening and assumes she’s stealing from his mother, who reveals she’s not actually paralyzed.

Yeon-ok then collapses and is hospitalized. Shenba says goodbye to her while the son looks on angrily. She then discovers that there’s a major landslide in her hometown and she goes back to India. Her family is safe, but it’s because Mani came back and helped them.

He finally apologizes for what he did and says he tried to reach out to return the money. Then her friends from Korea come to greet her, in her hometown, much to her surprise. Shenba’s father sees how happy they make her and the fact that they came so far, giving his blessings for her new life.

Ultimately she returns back to Seoul and discovers Yeon-ok passed away. She did leave Shenba a voicemail before she passed to thank her, much to Shenba’s surprise. Shenba decides to reopen the restaurant just for Yeon-ok, continuing on her legacy through food.

Overall Thoughts

I came into this movie with absolutely no expectations. And while it was corny in some moments, there was an incredible amount of heart put into this work. I also watched it at a right moment: I had just won a Fulbright to document the stories of people like Shenba in Korea.

Did this lean a bit stereotypical at times? Yes. I wanted it to dig deeper in someways, as Shenba’s initial interest in Korean culture is superficial, then becomes tangible once she develops relationships with actual Koreans. It’s a bit idealistic, as life in Korea can be lonely and difficult as a foreigner, but that wouldn’t make great mass cinema.

All of this said, I did enjoy this movie. I was pleasantly surprised by it and what it had to say, so if you’re interested in it and haven’t seen it already. Movies are meant to be seen, not read about on the Internet!

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