CROSSING BORDERS

An alternative title for Hana Korea could have been "Portrait of a Young Woman as a Defector." At its centre is Cho Hyesun, forced to leave behind her home, family, and life in North Korea to be able to earn enough to pay for her ailing mother's expensive medication.

- NAMRATA JOSHI

A decision driven by desperation, but one that also becomes an escape route from unspoken strangleholds and repression, an act motivated by the urgent need to provide for the one she holds dear, but also makes her go on a pursuit of personal happiness and fulfilment.

It takes her first to China and then onwards to South Korea. We start off by meeting her on an airplane that has come in from China. She is taken for routine questioning and the protocol of strip search by the South Korean authorities, and eventually to a cultural integration and orientation centre with a bunch of others seeking asylum.

Hyesun is clear-eyed about the way forward: education in a nursing school. She believes it holds the key to the future in a competitive world. But can she ever cut herself and move on from the life she has left behind? What is the price she'd have to pay?