'Possible Love' asks if love can survive without understanding

Lee Chang-dong’s Possible Love asks whether love can endure without full understanding in a film about two married couples from sharply different worlds. The review centers on Ho-seok, Mi-ok, Ye-ji and Sang-woo as desire, jealousy and emotional voids surface. It also highlights Jeon Do-yeon’s performance as Mi-ok and the film’s return to the partnership between Lee and Jeon nearly two decades after Secret Sunshine.

The film opens with the commandment, You shall not covet your neighbor’s possessions.

Ho-seok is a laid-off worker, while Ye-ji is a documentary filmmaker and Sang-woo is her husband.

The review says Lee Chang-dong and Jeon Do-yeon are reunited nearly two decades after Secret Sunshine.

Jeon Do-yeon won the Best Actress Award at the Cannes Film Festival for Secret Sunshine in 2007.

The film raises questions about when observing another person’s suffering becomes consumption rather than understanding.

Published Oct 2, 2026 5:25 pm KST

Sul Kyung-gu, left, and Jeon Do-yeon / Captured from Netfllix

How much understanding does love require? Must two people fully understand each other, look in the same direction and inhabit similar worlds for their relationship to endure? Or can remaining beside someone, even with parts of them that may never make sense, also be called love?

Those questions linger long after watching director Lee Chang-dong's new film "Possible Love."

The film begins with an encounter between two married couples from sharply different worlds. Ho-seok, played by Sul Kyung-gu, is a laid-off worker living with his wife Mi-ok, played by Jeon Do-yeon. Ye-ji, played by Cho Yeo-jeong, is a documentary filmmaker who wants to capture their lives on camera, while Zo In-sung plays her husband Sang-woo.

As the couples grow closer, their desires and emotional voids gradually come to the surface.

The film opens with an ominous commandment that reverberates throughout the film: "You shall not covet your neighbor's possessions."

Modern life constantly invites people to look at what others have: a better home, more money, greater stability or perhaps a more desirable spouse. Few are entirely unfamiliar with the experience of looking into someone else's life and suddenly taking stock of what is missing from their own.

The four characters in "Possible Love" similarly discover in one another something absent from their own lives. Those who have more become curious about those who have less, while those without privilege peer into the world of those who possess it.

One person may pick up a camera out of a genuine desire to understand someone else's pain. Yet at some point, that act of understanding can become an act of appropriating another person's life.

"Possible Love" refuses to pass easy judgment on its characters. Wealth does not make someone evil, just as poverty does not make someone virtuous. Desire can seep into even a sincere wish to help another person.

Relationships believed to be founded on love can simultaneously harbor jealousy, inferiority, anger and boredom. The characters' feelings are too complicated to explain solely as goodwill, yet too sincere to dismiss merely as desire.

At the center of this emotional complexity is Mi-ok.

Her husband Ho-seok lives with deep wounds and anger after losing his job. Their life is difficult and their future uncertain. Yet Mi-ok possesses a striking vitality.

She is not optimistic because she is naive about reality. She knows precisely where she stands, yet does not exaggerate her unhappiness or diminish herself when confronted with someone else's more privileged life.

Jeon Do-yeon / Captured from Netflix

Jeon portrays Mi-ok with remarkable naturalness. She does not overtly display sorrow, yet sadness is always present. She makes no effort to appear strong, yet strength emerges nonetheless. Rather than explaining Mi-ok's emotions, Jeon seems simply to inhabit her.

Before long, the viewer stops watching an actor perform and begins watching a person live.

That makes the reunion of Lee and Jeon particularly resonant. "Possible Love" brings them back together nearly two decades after "Secret Sunshine," Lee's acclaimed 2007 drama that won Jeon the Best Actress Award at the Cannes Film Festival.

If Shin-ae, Jeon's character in "Secret Sunshine," confronted God with questions after an unbearable loss, Mi-ok appears to be searching for somewhere to stand within the life she has been given.

She watches her broken husband, glances toward a seemingly better world and sometimes wavers, yet continues living her own life. What keeps this from feeling like mere resignation is the vitality Jeon preserves within the character.

Sul's Ho-seok is equally difficult to reduce to a simple label such as "laid-off worker."

His job loss took more than his paycheck. It also destabilized the social position through which he understood himself and damaged his sense of dignity. Sul seems to inscribe Ho-seok's accumulated shame, anger and helplessness onto his body.

Viewers may not be able to accept all of Ho-seok's anger, but it is difficult to ignore the conditions from which it grew.

Cho and Zo likewise give persuasive performances as characters who resist simple divisions between good and evil.

Ye-ji's attempt to film Ho-seok and Mi-ok's lives is particularly significant because it begins to feel like a question the film is asking of itself.

At what point does observing another person's suffering cease to be understanding and become consumption? How close can a filmmaker who turns someone's wounds into cinema truly get to that person's life? Can the distance between the person holding the camera and the person standing before it ever disappear?

Those questions appear directed not only at Ye-ji, but also at Lee himself.

In this way, "Possible Love" moves through labor, layoffs and class before turning its gaze toward the act of filmmaking itself. Eventually, all those questions converge on love.

Somewhere between the desire to understand another person's life and the desire to possess it, how do we love someone?

The title "Possible Love" sounds modest, perhaps even slightly resigned. But after watching the film, the word "possible" begins to carry surprising weight.

Perfect love is easy enough to imagine: two people who understand each other, never betray each other and remain of one heart until the end.

Real love contains all the moments that fantasy leaves out. There are words and actions we cannot understand, embarrassing jealousy and confusion, and feelings that cannot be explained even to those closest to us.

Remaining beside someone despite knowing all of that is difficult. Love itself does not automatically resolve those difficulties.

Perhaps that is why Mi-ok remains in the mind long after the film ends. It is not because her life provides an answer, but because she continues living even as she wavers.

Another day arrives despite emotions that cannot be understood and problems that remain unresolved. And within that life, one's feelings toward another person can begin moving again.

Leaving the theater brings us back to the question with which the film began: Can we love someone while accepting that parts of them may remain forever beyond our understanding?

There is still no easy answer. But even as we wait for perfect understanding that may never come, it remains possible to stay by someone's side.

In that sense, "Possible Love" ultimately leaves us with another question: not whether love can be perfect, but how we choose to remain beside the people we love.

This article from the Hankook Ilbo, the sister publication of The Korea Times, was translated by a generative AI system and edited by The Korea Times.

李沧东的《可能的爱》探讨了在缺乏充分理解的情况下，爱情能否维系。影片讲述了两对来自截然不同世界的已婚夫妇的故事。影评聚焦于浩锡、美玉、艺智和尚宇四位角色，展现了欲望、嫉妒和情感空虚的逐渐浮现。此外，影评还着重分析了全度妍饰演的美玉一角，以及李沧东和全度妍继《密阳》之后近二十年的再度合作。

影片以“不可贪恋邻舍的财物”这条诫命开篇。

浩锡是一名下岗工人，艺智是一名纪录片导演，尚宇是她的丈夫。

评论称，李沧东和全度妍继《密阳》之后时隔近二十年再度合作。

全度妍凭借《密阳》获得2007年戛纳电影节最佳女演员奖。

这部电影提出了这样一个问题：观察他人的痛苦何时会变成一种消费，而不是一种理解。

发布于2026年10月2日下午5:25（韩国标准时间）

薛景求（左）和全度妍 / 图片来自 Netflix

爱情需要多少理解？两个人必须完全了解彼此、朝着同一个方向努力、生活在相似的世界里，他们的关系才能长久吗？或者，即使对方的某些方面永远无法理解，陪伴在对方身边也能称之为爱吗？

看完李沧东导演的新电影《可能的爱》后，这些问题依然萦绕在心头。

影片以两对来自截然不同世界的夫妇的相遇开篇。徐景求饰演的浩锡是一位失业工人，与全度妍饰演的妻子美玉同居。赵汝贞饰演的艺智是一位纪录片导演，她想用镜头记录他们的生活，而赵寅成则饰演她的丈夫尚宇。

随着情侣关系的加深，他们的欲望和情感空虚会逐渐浮出水面。

影片以一条贯穿全片的不祥诫命开篇：“不可贪恋邻居的财物。”

现代生活不断诱使人们去关注他人所拥有的：更好的房子、更多的钱、更稳定的生活，或者更理想的伴侣。几乎没有人完全不曾有过这样的经历：窥视他人的生活，然后突然意识到自己生活中缺失了什么。

《可能的爱情》中的四个人物都以类似的方式在彼此身上发现了自己生活中缺失的东西。拥有更多的人开始对那些拥有较少的人感到好奇，而那些没有特权的人则窥探着那些拥有特权的人的世界。

一个人拿起相机，或许是出于真心想要了解他人的痛苦。然而，在某种程度上，这种了解的行为可能会演变成对他人生活的侵占。

《可能的爱》拒绝轻易评判剧中人物。财富并不会使人邪恶，正如贫穷并不会使人高尚。即使是真诚的助人愿望，也可能掺杂着欲望。

人们通常认为建立在爱情之上的关系，实际上可能同时滋生嫉妒、自卑、愤怒和厌倦。人物的情感过于复杂，无法简单地用善意来解释；但又过于真挚，不能仅仅用欲望来否定。

这种复杂的情感的核心是美玉。

她的丈夫浩锡失业后，内心充满伤痛和愤怒。他们的生活艰难，未来充满未知。然而，美玉却拥有惊人的活力。

她并非因为对现实天真而感到乐观。她清楚地知道自己的处境，但面对他人优越的生活，她既不会夸大自己的不快乐，也不会贬低自己。

全度妍 / 图片来自 Netflix

全智贤对美玉这个角色的演绎自然流畅，令人惊叹。她并不刻意流露悲伤，但悲伤却始终萦绕在心头。她没有刻意表现坚强，但坚强却自然流露。全智贤似乎并没有刻意解释美玉的情感，而是完全融入了这个角色之中。

不久之后，观众不再观看演员表演，而是开始观看真实的人。

这使得李连杰和全智贤的重聚显得格外意义非凡。《可能的爱》让他们在《密阳》之后近二十年再次合作，《密阳》是李连杰2007年备受赞誉的剧情片，并为全智贤赢得了戛纳电影节最佳女主角奖。

如果说《密阳》中全智贤饰演的申爱在经历了无法承受的失去之后向上帝提出了疑问，那么美玉似乎是在寻找她在自己的人生中能够立足的地方。

她看着心碎的丈夫，目光投向看似更美好的世界，有时也会动摇，但最终还是继续过着自己的生活。全秀兰赋予这个角色的活力，使这一切不至于沦为简单的无奈之举。

很难用“失业工人”这样的简单标签来概括雪浩锡。

失业带给他的不仅仅是薪水。它也动摇了他赖以认识自我的社会地位，损害了他的尊严感。雪似乎将浩锡积压的羞耻、愤怒和无助都铭刻在了他的身上。

观众或许无法完全接受浩锡的愤怒，但却很难忽视他愤怒产生的原因。

Cho 和 Zo 的表演同样令人信服，他们饰演的角色不愿简单地将人分为善与恶。

艺智试图拍摄浩锡和美玉的生活，这尤其意义重大，因为它开始让人感觉像是电影在向自己提出一个问题。

观察他人的痛苦，何时会从理解变成一种消耗？将他人的伤痛转化为电影影像的电影人，究竟能与被拍摄者的生活有多接近？持镜头者与镜头前的人之间的距离，真的会消失吗？

这些问题似乎不仅是针对李艺智的，也是针对李本人的。

《可能的爱情》就这样从劳动、裁员和阶级等主题入手，最终将目光转向电影制作本身。最终，所有这些问题都汇聚到爱情这个主题上。

我们究竟是如何爱一个人的呢？我们既渴望了解另一个人的生活，又渴望拥有它。

片名《可能的爱情》听起来很谦逊，甚至略带一丝无奈。但看完这部电影后，“可能”这个词却承载了意想不到的分量。

完美的爱情很容易想象：两个人互相理解，永不背叛，直到永远心连心。

真正的爱情包含了幻想所遗漏的一切。它包含着我们无法理解的言语和行为，令人尴尬的嫉妒和困惑，以及即使是对最亲近的人也无法解释的情感。

明知这一切，依然留在对方身边是件难事。爱本身并不能自动解决这些难题。

或许正因如此，电影结束后，美玉的形象依然留在人们的记忆中。并非因为她的人生给出了答案，而是因为即便内心摇摆不定，她依然在继续生活。

尽管心中充满难以理解的情绪，问题依然悬而未决，新的一天依然到来。而在这段人生旅程中，对另一个人的感情或许会再次萌芽。

离开剧院后，我们不禁回想起电影开头提出的问题：我们能否在爱一个人的同时，接受他们身上某些部分可能永远超出我们的理解范围？

目前仍没有简单的答案。即便我们仍在等待或许永远不会到来的完美理解，我们依然可以陪伴在某人身边。

从这个意义上讲，《可能的爱情》最终给我们留下了另一个问题：不是爱情是否可以完美，而是我们如何选择留在我们所爱的人身边。

本文来自《韩国日报》（《韩国时报》的姊妹报），由人工智能生成系统翻译，并由《韩国时报》编辑。