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As of 15 October 2022, it is the 8th highest-grossing Korean film of 2022, with a gross of US$13,574,873 and 1,884,394 admissions. Box office as of date: US$20.3 million
Awards for “Decision to Leave”:
(1) Buil Film Awards: Best Film, Best Music, and Best Cinematography;
(2) Korean Association of Film Critics Awards: Best Picture, Best Screenplay, Best Cinematography, Best Music.
Nominations for “Decision to Leave”: Cannes Film Festival - Palme d’Or; Jerusalem Film Festival - Best International Film.
Awards for Park Chan-wook: Cannes Film Festival, Best Director; Chunsa Film Art Awards, Best Director; Critics Choice Awards Asian Pacific Cinema & Television, Director Award.
Lead actors Park Hae-il and Tang Wei have also won awards for their performances.
How to use this spoiler-free synopsis:
| Note: Park Chan-wook deliberately crafted this movie’s editing to be jarring, which might make viewing it confusing at first.
In imdb, someone with the screenname “ilpohirvonen” eloquently described the editing as follows: “The complex plot is told in a fast pace, and narration keeps jumping back-and-forth between scenes, many of which have been executed with unprecedented innovation. For just one example, there is a scene where Park is able to combine Hae-jun in bed with his wife, him staring at mold on the corner of their wall, Seo-rae watching a Korean soap opera, and x-ray images related to the crime. Even if Hae-jun and Seo-rae were in different places in different times, Park constantly cuts their looks together. As a result, there is this continuous impression of a gaze that defies dimensions of space and time in the poetic space of the film. By means of editing, Park creates a luring kaleidoscope of ambivalent emotions.” |
Part 5 is the movie’s finale (the last 30 minutes or so); you can just read Parts 1 to 4, for example, to know what the movie is all about and then go watch the movie. (Part 3 is the midway point of the movie, between 55:14 to 1:15:53.)
Part 1 (from start to 27:49)
Hae-joon is a methodical but obsessive police detective in Busan. Suffering from insomnia because of an unsolved murder case, he lives apart from his wife and son, visiting them only once a week.
Together with his junior detective Soo-wan, Hae-joon goes to a mountain where a man died after falling from a steep cliff; the man is a retired immigration officer named Ki Do-soo.
Ki Do-soo’s beautiful young wife, Seo-rae, is an immigrant from China. While interviewing her at the morgue, Hae-joon begins to suspect that she’s involved somehow in her husband’s death. Together with Soo-wan, he places her under surveillance as she works as a caregiver for housebound adults. When the National Forensics Service reports that another person’s DNA has been found under the man’s fingernails, he calls her and tells her to report to the police station. But she refuses.
Note: Part 1 spoilers are at the bottom portion of this post.
Part 2 (from 27:50 to 55:13)
Soo-wan argues with Hae-joon over the lenient way that he treats their suspects, including Seo-rae. But Hae-joon says that Seo-rae’s alibi is backed up by the CCTV footage of her leaving her patient’s house around the time her husband fell from the cliff.
From an opposite building, Hae-joon continues to surveill Seo-rae through binoculars, a camera with a telephoto lens, and a listening device; he also continues to imagine being in the same room with her.
Hae-joon’s superior orders him to drop his investigation into Seo-rae and her husband’s death. But Soo-wan insists on continuing the investigation after he finds out that Seo-rae is the suspect in her mother’s death in China.
Flashback ... Seo-ra’s mother tells her to go to Homi Mountain in Korea because the mountain belongs to her grandfather.
When an officer at the immigration office confirms Ki Do-soo’s suicide letter, Hae-joon closes the investigation into Seo-rae. But Soo-wan becomes outraged and accuses him of being just like other police officers.
Note: Part 2 spoilers are at the bottom portion of this post.
Part 3 (from 55:14 to 1:15:53)
Hae-joon and Seo-rae spend time together at a Buddhist temple. Later on, when his wife smells (Seo-rae’s) cigarette smoke on his clothes, he blames Soo-wan.
When Seo-rae has to take care of her patient who has been rushed to a hospital, Hae-joon volunteers to take care of the patient whom she visits every Monday. In Seo-rae’s apartment, he finds her stash of fentanyl pills.
While taking care of Seo-rae’s Monday patient, Hae-joon finds out that the patient and Seo-rae have the same cellphone model. Later, based on the CCTV footage, he retraces Seo-rae’s movements on the day her husband died.
Note: Part 3 spoilers are at the bottom portion of this post.
Part 4 (from 1:15:54 to 1:43:05)
Thirteen months later ... Hae-joon has transferred to Ipo to be with his wife Jung-an, but his insomnia has only gotten worse.
While at a fish market with Jung-an, Hae-joon meets Seo-rae and her new husband Im Ho-shin, a stock analyst on TV. While Jung-an and Im Ho-shin exchange business cards, he notices Seo-rae’s dress with shiny buttons.
The next day, Im Ho-shin is found dead in his mansion’s swimming pool, having been stabbed more than a dozen times. Although Hae-joon concludes that the killer is left handed, Seo-rae is brought in to the police station for questioning. When Hae-joon asks her why she married a man like Im Ho-shin, she says that she made the decision to leave for another man. Before ending the questioning, Hae-joon takes a picture of Seo-rae in her blue dress.
As Hae-joon and his junior detective follow up the case, a witness tells them that Seo-rae wore a green dress, not a blue dress, while she walked along the breakwater. In Seo-rae’s house, Hae-joon finds out that Seo-rae burned up her green dress. He arrests Seo-rae for her husband’s murder.
Note: Part 4 spoilers are at the bottom portion of this post.
Part 5 (from 1:43:05 to the end)
After noticing the missed calls from Im Ho-shin, Jung-an suspects that Hae-joon is having an affair with Seo-rae.
Despite Sa Cheol-seong’s confession, Hae-joon continues to investigate Seo-rae. He reads the transcripts of the audio files from Seo-rae’s smartwatch, most of which are her observations and thoughts about him.
At the breakwater where Seo-rae was inadvertently photographed by the witness, Hae-joon orders his junior detective to get the help of fishermen to try and look for Im Ho-shin’s cellphone.
On her grandfather’s mountain, Seo-rae asks Hae-joon to scatter the ashes of her mother and grandfather over the cliff. She surprises Hae-joon when she shows him the cellphone that he told her to throw away into the ocean over a year ago; she tells him to use the cellphone to reopen the investigation into Ki Do-soo’s death.
Note: Part 5 spoilers are at the bottom portion of this post.
Historical / cultural backgrounders and other information; reviews
1. Guns are highly regulated in Korea. When Soo-wan is about to catch up with the murder suspect whom he and Hae-joon have been tracking for the last three years, he checks his .38 caliber revolver. You can see that he had an empty chamber in his gun’s cylinder. That's because Korean police regulations provide for this empty chamber to prevent accidental shootings.
2. Seo-rae’s grandfather is described as being a hero in the Korean independence movement against Japan, who fought in Manchuria. Some Korean dramas and movies about the Korean independence movement are “Bridal Mask” aka “Gaksital,” “Chicago Typewriter,” “Different Dreams,” and “The Battle: Roar to Victory.” In “Chicago Typewriter” (fantasy-historical drama), the second male lead is played by the actor who plays junior detective Soo-wan in “Decision to Leave.”
3. Reviews of “Decision to Leave”
(Note: James Marsh is a film critic for the South China Morning Post and Radio Television Hong Kong.)
Part 1 spoilers:
Seo-rae’s husband Ki Do-soo marked everything he owned with his initials "KDS," including Seo-rae’s body.
While watching Seo-rae as she takes care of a patient, Hae-joon imagines himself being in the room with her and closely monitoring everything she says or does.
At the police station, Seo-rae explains to Hae-joon (sometimes through a translator app on her phone) that she fought with her husband about going up to the mountain. After she allows Hae-joon to photograph the bruises on her leg and gives her DNA sample, he treats her to a deluxe sushi meal.
Despite being an illegal alien, Seo-rae was allowed to stay and live in Korea because her grandfather was a hero in the Korean independence movement that was based in Manchuria.
Hae-joon and Soo-wan finally get a lead on the whereabouts of the murder suspect they have been trying to catch for the last three years. As Hae-joon fights off the suspect who attacks him with a knife, Seo-rae sees them from her car.
Part 2 spoilers:
While watching Seo-rae, Hae-joon sees her feeding a crow. Later, he sees her burying the crow.
Hae-joon believes Seo-rae’s story that, based on her mother’s wish, she assisted her death with fentanyl pills.
Drunk, Soo-wan breaks into Seo-rae’s apartment and creates a mess. After cleaning up the mess, Hae-joon takes Seo-rae to his apartment and cooks dinner for her. On a wall, Seo-rae sees dozens of gory photos of Hae-joon’s unsolved cases.
Through Seo-rae’s insight, Hae-joon catches up with the murder suspect whom he has been chasing for the past three years. But cornered on a rooftop, the suspect takes his own life.
Seo-rae takes the gory pictures from Hae-joon’s wall and burns them; however, Hae-joon saves her surveillance pictures, saying that it’s because she’s beautiful. She also teaches him a breathing technique for falling asleep.
Part 3 spoilers:
Hae-joon finds out how Seo-rae killed her husband; he also finds out how she fabricated her husband’s suicide letter and that Soo-wan didn’t create the mess in her apartment. But despite his track record as an upright police officer, he covers up Seo-rae’s crime and tells her to throw away her cellphone into the ocean.
Part 4 spoilers:
To escape from Sa Cheol-seong, Seo-rae and her husband relocate to Ipo. At the police station, she rings the fire alarm; as the detectives and officers assemble at the courtyard, she delights in watching Hae-joon from afar and noticing the changes in his attire.
Seo-rae tells Hae-joon that she found her husband’s body in the pool; concerned that he will be traumatized by the bloody waters of the pool, she drained the pool and moved her husband’s body.
At the police station, after noticing that Seo-rae is wearing a smartwatch that can record audio, he orders his junior detective to extract the audio files from it.
Sa Cheol-seong, a Chinese immigrant, confesses to killing Im Ho-Shin for defrauding him and his mother of millions of dollars; he absolves Seo-rae of any involvement in the crime, saying that he knew of her every movement because of the tracker that he placed in her phone.
Part 5 spoilers:
Im Ho-shin threatens Seo-rae that he will reveal to Hae-joon’s wife Jung-an that she and Hae-joon had an affair. To protect Hae-joon, Seo-rae thus assists Sa Cheol-seong’s mother in dying by giving her the fentanyl pills, knowing that Sa Cheol-seong will immediately seek revenge against Im Ho-shin for his mother’s death. At the breakwater, she throws Im Ho-shin’s phone into the ocean.
When Seo-rae tells him that the recording which Im Ho-shin threatened to reveal to Jung-an contained his words that he loved her, Hae-joon replies that doesn’t recall ever having told her that he loved her.Later, Hae-joon finds Seo-rae’s cellphone with the recording of him telling her to throw away her cellphone into the ocean so that there wouldn’t be any evidence linking her to Ki Do-soo’s death; Seo-rae took his words as his confession of love for her.
Wanting to forever remain as an unsolved mystery in Hae-joon’s mind just like the other cases posted on his wall in Busan, Seo-rae digs a pit on the beach and lies in it; as the tide comes in, she drowns and gets buried in the pit.
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