Lee Chang-dong hasn't made a film since 2018. Possible Love, which premiered in competition at Venice on Sunday, closes that gap with a nearly three-hour drama that reportedly started as an idea he couldn't write for sixteen years.

The story traces back to a 2009 mass layoff at a major South Korean company and the workers' strike that followed, which Deadline reports Lee found too raw to fictionalise at the time. He came back to it only now, with the changing shape of labour in Korea giving him, per Deadline, a way in through the filmmaking process itself.

Two Couples, One Class Line

The film follows Ho-seok (Sul Kyung-gu), a factory worker broken by losing his job after the strike, and his wife Mi-ok (Jeon Do-yeon), who stays hopeful even as her husband withdraws. A funeral brings them into contact with Ye-ji (Cho Yeo-jeong), a documentary filmmaker chasing Ho-seok's story, and her wealthy husband Sang-woo (Zo In-sung). The two couples end up spending time together at Ye-ji and Sang-woo's seaside home, and from there the class gap between them starts doing quiet, uncomfortable work on everyone involved, including an ocean encounter between Mi-ok and Sang-woo that both outlets flag as a turning point.

Deadline calls the film's territory reminiscent of Parasite's class fault lines, minus the satire, and says the Ho-seok and Sang-woo dynamic is where the film properly locks in, even if it takes its time getting there. THR is less measured, calling the premiere a Venice sensation and the reviews that dropped alongside it a near-unanimous rave.

The Ovation Math Doesn't Quite Match

How long did the Sala Grande actually clap? Deadline's headline cites six and a half minutes. THR says seven. Either way, cast members were reportedly in tears, and Lee kept bowing until festival staff had to move things along for the next screening. Small discrepancy, same picture: this was a big night.

What's not in dispute is the cast. Jeon Do-yeon won best actress at Cannes for Secret Sunshine in 2007. Sul Kyung-gu has been Lee's face since Peppermint Candy and Oasis. Cho Yeo-jeong is best known internationally as the wife in Parasite. Bringing three of them into one Lee Chang-dong film, alongside Zo In-sung, is the kind of reunion that gets Korean cinephiles talking regardless of what the film itself does.

The Release Calendar Is Already Locked

Netflix financed and produced Possible Love outright, unusual for both the streamer and for Lee, and has marked it as one of its major awards plays for 2026. South Korea selected it last month as the country's international feature Oscar submission, its fourth Lee film to get that nod after Oasis, Secret Sunshine and Burning.

The rollout is staggered. Korea gets it theatrically September 23. Australia follows October 22, with the US, Canada, UK, Ireland and Japan all opening October 23. Netflix streams it worldwide from November 6, after a two-week theatrical window in the US.

Before any of that, there's Toronto, New York, San Sebastián, Zurich, Vancouver and Busan still to come on the festival circuit. And in Venice itself, Possible Love is one of 21 titles chasing the Golden Lion, with Maggie Gyllenhaal's jury announcing winners September 12.