Lee Chang-dong’s Possible Love Eyes Global Awards Run

Lee Chang-dong’s new Netflix-backed film Possible Love is moving toward release with a strategy that looks designed for both theaters and the global awards circuit. The film has received an adult-only rating in South Korea, carries a 164-minute runtime, and is expected to reach cinemas before its Netflix rollout, giving one of Korean cinema’s most respected directors a carefully staged return after eight years.

The early plan matters because Possible Love is not being treated like an ordinary streaming title. Korean reports say the film is preparing for a roughly two-week theatrical window in the third quarter of this year before becoming available on Netflix, a route that would also position it for South Korea’s submission process for next year’s Academy Awards international feature category.

A Streaming Film Built for the Big Screen

The Korea Media Rating Board recently classified Possible Love as restricted to adult viewers. The board’s description cited direct sexual context, nudity, and sexual acts as the basis for the rating, while also summarizing the film as a story about laid-off workers, loss, trauma, recovery in human relationships, and love.

The rating confirms that Lee is once again working in a serious dramatic register rather than smoothing the material for mainstream accessibility. It also gives the film a concrete shape after months of anticipation: this is a long, adult drama about damaged lives and moral tension, not a compact prestige thriller built only for online viewing.

At 164 minutes and 2 seconds, Possible Love is reported to be the longest film of Lee’s career. That detail is significant for a director whose work is already known for patient observation and emotional accumulation. In films such as Secret Sunshine, Poetry, and Burning, Lee has often allowed ordinary conversations and quiet gestures to carry the weight of larger questions. A running time approaching three hours suggests that his new film may give similar space to character, class, and unresolved feeling.

The theatrical plan is just as notable as the runtime. Netflix titles in Korea do not usually need the same release path as cinema-first films, but reports say Possible Love is expected to screen in Korean theaters for about two weeks before Netflix distributes it worldwide.

That would make the project a hybrid: financed and distributed through the streaming ecosystem, but introduced through the cultural language of cinema. For Lee, whose filmography has been shaped by festivals, art houses, and theatrical audiences, that distinction is not merely technical. It signals that the film’s first encounter with the public is being framed as an event.

The Oscar and Venice Signals

The awards implications are difficult to ignore. Academy rules for the international feature category require a qualifying theatrical run in the submitting country, including at least seven consecutive days in a commercial theater. Korean reports say the production has been submitted to the Korean Film Council’s process for next year’s Academy Awards international feature selection, which makes the theatrical window a practical necessity as well as a symbolic choice.

The film is also being discussed in connection with the Venice International Film Festival, which opens in September. If Possible Love were invited to Venice’s competition section, it would mark a striking return for Lee, who won the Silver Lion for Best Director there in 2002 with Oasis. Such a selection has not been confirmed.

Venice would also be a natural platform for a Netflix-backed Korean auteur film. The festival has previously welcomed major Netflix titles, including Alfonso Cuaron’s Roma, which won the Golden Lion in 2018 before becoming an awards-season landmark. For Possible Love, a Venice premiere would immediately place the film in front of international critics and awards observers.

The Oscar path is more complicated. South Korea can submit only one film for the international feature race, and selection is never automatic, even for a director of Lee’s stature. But the fact that Possible Love is being positioned to meet eligibility requirements shows that its team is planning beyond a domestic release cycle. The strategy appears to be built around three stages: qualify in theaters, test the film in the festival conversation, and then use Netflix’s global reach to expand awareness.

A Cast Built Around Korean Cinema Heavyweights

The cast is another reason interest is high. Possible Love stars Jeon Do-yeon, Sul Kyung-gu, Jo In-sung, and Cho Yeo-jeong, four highly recognizable names in Korean screen culture.

Jeon Do-yeon’s involvement is especially resonant because she won Best Actress at the Cannes Film Festival for Lee’s Secret Sunshine in 2007. Her reunion with Lee gives the project immediate weight among cinephiles. Sul Kyung-gu, another actor long associated with intense dramatic roles, adds a further layer of expectation.

Jo In-sung and Cho Yeo-jeong broaden the film’s profile. Jo is familiar to many international K-drama and film viewers, while Cho became globally recognizable through Bong Joon-ho’s Oscar-winning Parasite. Their presence suggests that the film is not only a director-driven work but also a major ensemble piece capable of drawing attention beyond the arthouse audience that already follows Lee.

The reported synopsis centers on two couples from sharply different social positions. One couple is made up of workers who have been dismissed from their jobs, played by Sul and Jeon. The other involves a wealthy documentary filmmaker and spouse, played by Cho and Jo. Their lives intersect through the making of a documentary, setting up a story about class, intimacy, observation, and the unequal power of who gets to film whom.

That premise sits comfortably within Lee’s long-standing interests. His films often begin with everyday life and then expose moral fractures underneath it. Possible Love appears to use a documentary project inside the story as a way to ask who controls narrative, whose pain becomes material, and whether compassion can survive when people enter one another’s lives from unequal positions.

The Decalogue Connection

One of the more intriguing details surrounding Possible Love is its reported link to a global project reinterpreting Krzysztof Kieslowski’s Decalogue. Polish producer Maciej Musial has said in an overseas interview that Lee’s film is part of a contemporary international effort connected to Kieslowski’s landmark work.

The original Decalogue, released in 1988 and 1989, was a ten-part Polish television series inspired by the Ten Commandments. Rather than treating those commandments as simple moral lessons, Kieslowski used them as starting points for intimate stories about choice, guilt, desire, family, and ethical uncertainty in modern life.

If Possible Love is indeed part of that wider reinterpretation, the connection helps explain both its ambition and its subject matter. A story about two couples, labor, trauma, and a documentary encounter could easily become a contemporary Korean meditation on moral responsibility. It would also place Lee alongside other international directors exploring the same source from different cultural angles.

The first film connected to the project, Asghar Farhadi’s Parallel Tales, was shown at the Cannes Film Festival in May, according to Korean reports. Farhadi and Lee are very different filmmakers, but both are drawn to social pressure, ethical ambiguity, and the ways private choices become public consequences. That shared territory makes the reported project link especially compelling.

Why This Release Is Being Watched Closely

For Korean cinema, Possible Love arrives at a moment when the boundaries between theaters and streaming platforms remain unsettled. Major directors increasingly work with global streamers, but their films still seek the visibility and communal impact of theatrical release. Lee’s new film may become a high-profile test case for how those paths can coexist.

The project also follows a period in which Korean films have enjoyed enormous international attention but have faced a complicated domestic theatrical market. A two-week pre-release is unlikely to function like a conventional box office campaign. Instead, it can create scarcity, qualify the film for awards consideration, and generate early critical discussion before Netflix widens access.

That strategy fits the director. Lee’s films rarely depend on opening-weekend spectacle. They tend to gather force through debate, interpretation, and performances that linger after the credits. A short theatrical run followed by a global streaming release could give Possible Love both the prestige of a cinema event and the reach needed to become a worldwide conversation.

Several key details remain unconfirmed, including the exact theatrical release date, Netflix premiere date, and festival lineup. But the outline is already clear enough: Lee Chang-dong is returning with his longest film, an adult drama led by a major ensemble, and a release plan that appears to be aimed at festivals, awards eligibility, and global discovery all at once.

For audiences outside Korea who first encountered Lee through Burning, the new film could become the director’s most accessible release yet, at least in terms of availability. For longtime followers, the bigger question is whether Possible Love can turn its careful rollout into the kind of sustained critical attention that has defined Lee’s best work.