‘The Fin’ review: Haunting imagery of ecologically devastated Korea – Locarno 2025
South Korean indie filmmaker Syeyoung Park returns to the Swiss festival with a haunting and artistically fertile dystopian tale set in eco-devastated, reunified Korea.
Locarno’s Cineasti del Presente sidebar is dedicated to first or second features by directors that are radical, uncompromising, adventurous, and infused with genuine curiosity about the full spectrum of cinematic possibility. Korean filmmaker Syeyoung Park hits the mark perfectly with his new film, The Fin, a sophomore triumph that solidifies his reputation as a daring new voice in Korean underground cinema.
Returning to the festival one year after receiving a special mention for The Masked Monster (which competed in the Short Film Auteur Competition)—now a strong contender for the Green Leopard—Park transports audiences to a post-war Korea where the South and the North have reunified. However, this reunification has not brought peace to its people, instead, the country lies in ecological ruin, as a girl narrates: “The ocean used to be blue, and many people died after black raindrops fell, making them sick and causing them to cough” including herself. Tragically, the girl's father has disappeared.
In this toxic wasteland, where the oceans are poisoned and the sky has turned blood-red, we follow Sujin, played by Pureum Kim, a young woman who joins the Korean Freedom Youth Civil Service as a Labor Force to help protect the reunified state from mutated outcasts known as Omegas.
These Omegas, transformed by the black raindrops, possess feet twice as long as those of humans, three toes, and a fin mutated from their tailbones. Their tails, ironically, are adept at cleaning the contaminated ocean, making them ideal for forced labor. The government exploits them as cheap cleanup workers, assigning them to clear the waste polluting the sea. To isolate the Omegas from society, the state has constructed a 4,000-kilometer-long Great Wall. It’s said that if an Omega screams outside of water, anyone who hears it will die instantly. The wall, therefore, serves not just as a barrier, but also as a safeguard for those living within.
Sujin’s assignment is clear: track and detain any Omegas who manage to breach the wall. Among them is one mysterious Omega (Goh-Woo), who crosses into the city on a mission: to find a fishing shop called The Golden Faith. Inside the walled city, unrest simmers. Protesters with soot-streaked faces flood the streets, demanding a better life and calling for the expulsion of all Omegas. Tucked away in an abandoned building, The Golden Faith emerges as an unlikely sanctuary. Once a coastal people, former fishermen now flock to this surreal simulation of their lost livelihood. Under pulsing disco lights and the melancholic strains of traditional Korean music, where they can catch bred fishes in artificial tanks.
Working behind the counter is Mia (Yeji Yeon), a quiet woman hiding in plain sight. What no one knows is that she’s an Omega—desperate to live a normal life, far from the forced labor camps outside the wall. But as another Omega begins seeking her out, and Sujin closes in with growing suspicion, Mia’s fragile peace starts to unravel. Can she survive the threats closing in from all sides?
What’s great about The Fin is how director Syeyoung Park weaves elements of ecological devastation and political tension into a story that is both eerie and compelling through its unique cinematic style. After a haunting narration, Park gradually immerses us into a world of his own creation—a bleak, apocalyptic landscape where people do not clean their dirty faces because, encouraged by the government, they are told to do so to "save the water." The ill-fated Omegas, whose bodies are coated in thick oil from cleaning the ocean, endure a tragic fate.
The Fin grips you with its unnerving introduction, weaving nuanced pacing with rich, immersive world-building. Grim, haunting, and atristically fertile, Park skillfully shifts perspectives, from the government worker to the Omega in search of a hidden Omega, excelling in both atmosphere and emotional resonance to probes moral complexity from both sides of the divide.
The key elements that shape the film, apart from its cryptic screenplay are the locations, the colour grading, and the cinematography, which was also done by Park. A yellow hue dominates the film, both in outdoor settings and in liminal spaces. A deliberate choice that clearly allows viewers to interpret this gloomy world in their own way.
The Fin portrays life in a dystopian world, and offering an eye-opening perspective on experiences that should resonate with those of us who have not lived through such times but are entangled in ecological issues like these. A stark cautionary tale and a deeply human drama about societies struggling to survive.
The Fin is a co-production between South Korea, Germany, and Qatar. It is produced by Heejung Oh through Seesaw Pictures, Philippe Bober at Essential Filmproduktion, with Syeyoung Park also on board via Pretty things Films. The project received support from the Doha Film Institute, while Coproduction Office handles international sales.
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