CHOI SUNG-EUN, HA SEO-YOON, KANG CHAE-YUN IN TIME TO BE STRONGNAMKOONG SUN: TIME TO BE STRONG (2024) New York Asian Film Festival 2025TRAILERTime to Be Strong subtly describes the cruel and exploitative nature of the Korean youth pop music industry by focusing, without colorful flashbacks or graphic descriptions, on a brief healing moment in the devastated post-career lives of three former K-pop "idols" - though the word "idol" itself, it's clear, is an exaggeration. The sophomore effort of director Namkoong Sun was a government-supported project. Some awards came at the Korean premiere - best local film, best actress - but audience reaction may be mixed. For me it was a bit of a slog, but that's always very subjective and it seems very heartfelt and personal too.
We follow Soomin (Choi Sung-eun), Sarang (Ha Seo-yoon), and Tae Hee (Kang Chae-yun) on a short vacation to Jeju island. They're sort of washed up at 27 or so, forcibly "retired" from their torturous jobs, Tae Hee in perhaps a boy band, the two young women who knew but aren't dating him, Soomin and Sarang, from the same girl band, one of whose members exited tragically, and event that haunts them. She would have perhaps been on this trip and someone else. This is a trip film, a coming of age film, perhaps a film about healing. Jeju, Korea's largest island, is a colorful holiday spot, and we glimpse beauty but also ordinariness like cars, side roads, a motel, an old van. Of this holiday spot they get to see only a little.
This is because very early it turns out Sarang has psych issues and her suitcase gets lost in the flight so she has no meds. At an outdoor cafe she becomes angry and paranoid and physically attacks other customers. After the fracas a representative of the attacked party demands a large direct settlement which Soomin negotiates. They give up much less than is demanded but most of the cash they have. So they have no money and apparently no credit cards, and besides are all three traumatized. Tae Hee, who looks like a very big angelic baby, already has troublingly large credit card debt - something about an older woman who tried to exploit him. He keeps uselessly calling his former CEO because he says he has nobody else to talk to. Soomin can take charge, perhaps, but she struggles with bulimia, which she hints is a common result in girl bands of years of maintaining youthful looks.
They look for work, and they find it picking tangerines. The man in charge (Hong Sang-pyo) is unusually nice and they bond with the humble co-pickers, whom Tae Hee entertains with singing. Obviously he can't sing: he exlpains nowadays they can fix that in the recording studio. Soomin negotiates a cheap place to stay, a camper van. Tae Hee normally has trouble sleeping and here, his tall frame is cramped. On the second day of tangerine picking Soomin faints, and the boss won't let her go back to work. In their chat, he tells Tae Hee he can't understand a thing he says. It may be that they're city slickers from Seoul; but also that the world in which kids were "idols" and are "retired" at 27 is alien to him, as to most of us.
The boss pays them double but very kindly asks them to leave after day two. He says they have been picking twice as much as the regulars are; evidently that would ber too disruptive. They receive notifcation that Sarang's red suitcase has been found and they go to the lost and found where Sarang finds it's red but not hers. The lost and found lady insists she take it anyway, saying it's been around for. years. It turns out to have nice stuff, in fact, which Sarang wears. Later she goes to a medical facility and renews her meds, getting a two-week supply. But she's probably bipolar, and her mood drops soon.
On an up note however the lost and found lady (Kang Chae-yoon) turns out to be what Moon Ki-hoon calls in a review in
The Korean Herald a "dorky but endearingly sincere fangirl," whose warmth stands apart from "the industry's manufactured, hyper-organized fan culture," and whose "simple gestures of goodwill -- playing and singing along to their old songs, showing them how to enjoy life while acting as an impromptu tour guide -- become literal beacons of hope for the protagonists." I fear it is spelled out so obviously. This film isn't notable for its subtlety. She gladly joins up with the trio to drive them to their van, which would be a long bus ride, and that night she parties with them, drinking by a chopped-wood fire at the beach, singing and letting go with them and next day playing that impromptu tour guide role.
There is a final double crisis, which feels a bit manufactured but in the circumstances is understandable: Soomin is the only stable one of the three travelers, and we've seen how flawed she can be, at times.
Though the message about K-pop exploitation of its young performers and the followup life lessons are pretty explicit, this is a sweet little film, which students of this kind of entertainment ought to look at. Maybe this is how members of an English boy band in the UK between 2010 and 2016 that was
not One Direction might feel. Even not all of
them could ber Harry Styles.
Time to Be Strong 힘을 낼 시간 (Himeul nael sigan), 102 mins., Jeonju May 2, 2024, three awards (grand prize film, Watcha's pick, and best actress to Choi Sung-eun), also featured at Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore fests, with theatrical relese in Korea Dec. 18, 2024. Screened for this review as part of the July 11-27, 2025 New York Asian Film Festival.
SCHEDULE:
Friday July 25, 6:00pm
SVA Theatre
2025 NYAFF Uncaged Award Nominee. Intro and Q&A with director Namkoong Sun
FAQ
Search
Login
