‘Made in Korea’ review: A wasted opportunity

A young woman from a hill town in Tamil Nadu has been obsessed with Korean culture since her childhood. Shenba (Priyanka Mohan) is so desperate to watch K-dramas that she stands on top of an elephant to catch the dodgy internet connection.

It’s the Tamil-Korean-English film’s most inspired visual. Sadly, Made in Korea writer-director Ra Karthik doesn’t delve into what exactly it is about South Korea that connects to the Tamilian. Beyond the disputed legend of a Korean queen’s Tamil roots, Karthik isn’t curious about the specific aspects of the Hallyu wave that has engulfed the world, including India.

In the Netflix film, Korea appears to be an excuse for Shenba to discover herself in a foreign land. She initially doesn’t make a good case for herself, leaning heavily on her boyfriend Mani (Rishikanth) to take the crucial decision to travel to Seoul for work.

It’s apparently blindingly easy to get employment in Seoul. But once there, Shenba is a mopey mess. Mani is nowhere on the scene, and the promised job is a hoax.

Angels appears in the form of a young man (No Ho-jin) and later an elderly woman (Squid Game actor Park Hye-Jin). Shenba discovers community, independence and purpose, all within parts of Seoul that are mostly teeming with...

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