Final Rating: 4/5
As the relentless march of time soldiers on into May, we take time to celebrate two annual events. One is Asian Heritage Month, and the other is of course the Canadian Screen Awards (okay technically the main gala will be on June 1st, but the award giving does start May 30th, and I need to get this out early enough for Dakota to post it, so May it is).
Last year, I reviewed Ru, the film about Vietnamese refugees in Quebec that won Best Supporting actress for Chantal Thuy. This year, we have another immigrant story in Mongrels, directed by actor turned director Jerome Yoo, in his debut feature, with two nominations – one for Original Screenplay and one for Best First Feature.
Debuting at VIFF 2024 (where Yoo won the Emerging Canadian Director award), Mongrels follows a family of three, who emigrate to the Canadian prairies. Told as a triptych following each member individually (God following the father, Cowboy following the son, and Blonde following the daughter), it puts a twist on the recent trend of “Asian immigrants moving to a rural area” films we’ve seen such as Minari, or Bitterroot. With an overarching throughline of grief as each member processes the mother’s passing in a different way, we get almost three different genres of film told that synthesizes to be greater than the sum of their parts.
In the first act, following the father Sonny (Jae-Hyun Kim), we are immersed in the rural world they have moved to, where his dog whisperer skills proves to be an asset for his new job hunting feral dogs that allegedly terrorize farmer’s lands. (Side note, if you are sensitive to violence toward animals, I would recommend passing on this one – while nothing explicit is shown, it definitely could be upsetting for some).
Where most of the aforementioned rural-immigrant films show the serenity and peace that can be found in nature with sweeping panoramas, cinematographer Jayrl Lim starts off the film with relatively claustrophobic framing of the forest, as if even despite changing countries, Sonny is still haunted by the loss of his wife and trapped by his grief. We also see difficulties he has in integrating to his new society; for example he and his children partake in ancestor worship (making do with offering local beer instead of korean makgeolli/rice wine), which contrasts with the Christian services of his employer.
And of course no immigrant story would be complete without musings on the intergenerational immigrant burden he faces that his children will never appreciate. All this culminates with Sonny feeling closer to the dogs he hunts, than his white employers and neighbors.
In the second act, focusing on the son Hajoon (Ho-Young Jeon), we shift more into a coming of age story where he is shown as being torn between Korean ideals of masculinity (his father’s mantra of Strong Mind, Strong Heart, Strong Fists and an emphasis on how military service would have made him a man), and the new friends he has made as well as his own sexuality. Taking advantage of the three act structure, where before Hajoon was shown as inconsiderate teenager, in act two we see Sonny as an aimless father who perhaps had a part to play indirectly in his wife’s death, with Hajoon finally standing up to him and taking care of his sister.
And in the next act, we will see that Hajoon can be a bit short with his sister sometimes, so he’s not the perfect brother he thinks he is. This perhaps is my favorite element of the film, showing the subjective nature of our experiences while also showing that while you’re not exactly always right, you’re also not always wrong either.
Speaking of the final act, we take a more fairy tale-esque approach as we follow the younger sister Hana (Sein Jin). Barely old enough to remember much of her mother beyond some tales she was told (such as how if you “eat” 100 flying airplanes you can get a wish granted), she initially seems the least burdened by her mother’s loss (perhaps not fully understanding she is truly gone).
The cinematography opens up with more shots of the open sky and Hana being at peace in the wilderness. There is a bit of commentary on Western versus Korean beauty standards with the employer’s wife wanting to dye Hana’s hair blonde and enter her into pageants, but really the standout here is one of the final sequences where she basically recreates an image of the Pied Piper in traditional garb. This is where the consistently well done score by Jude Shih and Tae-Young Yu comes to a head (though admittedly dialogue sound mixing throughout was a bit hit or miss for me).
Overall, they say that first time directors should avoid working with both children and animals, and somehow Director Yoo did both in his film to great success. Layering on themes of grief on top of the archetypal immigrant narrative in his own unique way, he definitely is a director to keep an eye on for his future films.
