Netflix will bring the films of Lee Chang-dong to subscribers worldwide, the streaming service said Monday, a move that arrives just as the director's newest feature, "Possible Love," begins its push toward awards season. The global library deal covers Lee's existing filmography, while "Possible Love" itself is set to debut on the platform on Sept. 23, ten days after Monday's announcement.
The timing is no accident. "Possible Love" has been building momentum on the festival circuit since its premiere, and the Netflix rollout positions the 165-minute drama in front of the service's enormous international audience at the exact moment awards voters begin filling out ballots. For a filmmaker whose work has long been championed by critics but distributed unevenly outside South Korea, the arrangement marks a significant shift in how his films reach viewers.
The new film stars Jeon Do-yeon as Ahn Mi-ok, a woman navigating a marriage strained by economic hardship. Sul Kyung-gu plays her husband, Choi Ho-seok, a laid-off worker. Their lives intersect with a documentary filmmaker, Sang-woo (Zo In-sung), and his spouse, Lee Ye-ji (Cho Yeo-jeong). Jo Yuri appears as a younger version of Mi-ok in what is understood to be a series of flashbacks. The story follows the two couples as their encounters force hidden desires to the surface.
It is a reunion of sorts for Lee and his leads. Jeon and Sul have anchored several of the director's most celebrated films, dating back to the late 1990s, and their return to his orbit has been a talking point among festivalgoers throughout the fall. The pairing of that history with a fresh face like Zo In-sung, best known for his work in Korean television and genre cinema, gives the project a mixture of familiarity and novelty that awards strategists tend to prize.
An Unusual Awards Season Footprint
"Possible Love" enters the race with a profile that is, by Hollywood standards, unusual. It runs 165 minutes, well past the length that typically gives distributors pause, and it is a drama of ideas rather than a spectacle. Its Korean-language dialogue places it in the international feature conversation, though Netflix's day-and-date global release means it will also be visible to voters in categories that have historically favored English-language work.
The film's ratings data on major aggregator platforms remains sparse, with a TMDb score sitting at 0/10 - a figure that reflects the near-total absence of logged audience votes rather than any verdict on the film itself. That will change quickly once the Sept. 23 release puts it in front of Netflix's subscriber base.
For Lee, the streaming partnership resolves a long-standing frustration. His films have traveled widely on the festival circuit, collecting prizes at Cannes and Venice, but theatrical distribution in North America and Europe has often been limited to a handful of urban art houses. A global platform release removes those geographic barriers entirely. Whether that translates into awards hardware is another question, but it gives the campaign a foundation that specialty releases rarely enjoy.
What Netflix Gets
The library component of the deal is arguably the more consequential long-term play. Lee's earlier features - spare, patient, often devastating studies of people under pressure - have been difficult to find legally in many markets for years. Bringing them under one roof gives Netflix a curated auteur collection at a moment when competitors are spending heavily on exactly that kind of prestige catalog.
It also deepens the service's relationship with a director who, at this stage of his career, is unlikely to make the kind of broad commercial fare that dominates streaming charts. Netflix has spent the past several years courting filmmakers of Lee's stature, offering them final-cut assurances and global reach in exchange for exclusivity windows. The Lee arrangement follows that template.
For exhibitors, the news is more complicated. A day-and-date streaming debut for a film with this much critical attention removes it from the theatrical pipeline almost entirely, at least in markets where Netflix does not arrange a limited run. That has become a familiar complaint from theater owners, and it is unlikely to fade as more prestige titles migrate to streaming-first releases.
"Possible Love" arrives Sept. 23. The awards conversation, already underway, will now unfold in front of a far larger audience than any of Lee's previous films have reached.
Source: The Hollywood Reporter
