When a confident high school student refuses to add her name to a petition against a sex offender, questions mount over why in this superb and psychologically complex drama exploring trauma responses to abuse in modern Korea.
Gliding effortlessly from teen comedy to poignant social drama and all the way back and around again, The World of Love is a near-flawless triumph.
The World of Love 2025
Segyeui Ju-in
Yoon Ga-eun’s riveting teen drama, The World of Love, continues the director’s focus on youth struggles in contemporary Korea, this time turning to the ways trauma lingers in the aftermath of abuse, and the ripple effects it has across family and social circles. \
Teenager Joo-in (a superb Seo Su-bin) outwardly seems to be handling the usual high school pressures—friendships, first love, keeping up her grades—with verve and confidence. But a school petition against a sex offender becomes the catalyst for her to confront her own past, forcing her to reckon with the stigma of being a victim-survivor, and all that the label implies.
Rich in emotional texture and delicately rendered in Yoon’s patient, observational style, the film may have its finger directly on the pulse of the young female experience in Korea, but there’s a universality to its broader truths of how trauma shapes the behaviours of abuse survivors. A vital and urgent work, Yoon’s ability to build a complex psychological portrait of young people with humanity and grace while kickstarting a serious discussion about a sensitive subject surely places her as one of the most important and compelling voices in Korean filmmaking today.
– Cho Jinseok