Decision to Leave

Decision to Leave is a 2022 South Korean neo-noir romantic mystery film directed, co-written and produced by Park Chan-wook. The film follows married detective Jang Hae-jun (Park Hae-il), whose investigation of a man's death leads him to the man's widow, Chinese immigrant Song Seo-rae (Tang Wei). Hae-jun's investigation of Seo-rae as a suspect gradually leads him to develop feelings towards her.

In April 2022, Decision to Leave was selected to compete for the Palme d'Or at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival, where Park Chan-wook won Best Director. The film was released theatrically on 29 June 2022 in South Korea. Mubi acquired the distribution rights for several territories, including North America, where it was released theatrically on 14 October 2022. Its streaming premiere began in Mubi on 9 December 2022, where it would later become the company's most streamed film.

Decision to Leave received critical acclaim, being named one of the top 5 international films of 2022 by the National Board of Review. It was selected as the South Korean entry for Best International Feature Film at the 95th Academy Awards, making the December shortlist. Among the accolades and nominations it received are two BAFTA Award nominations at the 76th British Academy Film Awards, for Best Film Not in the English Language and Best Direction, seven wins from 13 nominations at the 43rd Blue Dragon Film Awards, and 3 wins from 7 nominations at the 59th Baeksang Arts Awards.

Plot
Insomniac detective Jang Hae-jun works in Busan and only sees his wife, Jung-an, a nuclear power plant worker residing in Ipo, once a week. Hae-jun and his partner, Soo-wan, encounter a case where a retired immigration officer, Ki Do-soo, is found dead at the foot of a mountain he often climbed. They interview his much younger wife, Song Seo-rae, an emigrant from China who works as a caretaker for seniors. They suspect her because of her insufficient displays of grief, a scratch on her hand, bruises on her legs and torso, and a tattoo of Ki's initials in the manner that he also marked his belongings.

Hae-jun conducts further interviews with Seo-rae and conducts nightly stakeouts outside of Seo-rae's apartment building, becoming infatuated with her in the process. Seo-rae observes him outside her building, and witnesses one of his other investigations in turn. Seo-rae's Monday client says Seo-rae was with her on the day that Ki died, and camera footage is found showing Seo-rae outside her Monday client's home shortly before Ki's time of death. Questioned about her background, Seo-rae admits that in China she killed her terminally ill mother with fentanyl pills when requested to do so. Before dying, she told Seo-rae to go to Korea to climb the mountain her Korean grandfather, an independence fighter in Manchuria, had left her. Seo-rae gives Hae-jun letters written by Ki admitting to corrupt business dealings, including a letter sent to a subordinate that Hae-jun interprets as a suicide note. Hae-jun rules that the death was a suicide despite Soo-wan's doubts and informs Seo-rae that she is no longer a suspect.

Seo-rae and Hae-jun go on a date at a Buddhist temple, visit each other's homes, and become close. At his apartment, Seo-rae burns Hae-jun's photo evidence from her husband's case, reasoning that Hae-jun's insomnia is caused by his haunting cases. One day, substituting for Seo-rae at her Monday client, Hae-jun learns that Seo-rae and the client have the same model of cell phone, and that the client has dementia and does not know the day of the week. On the client's phone, he sees that the housebound woman apparently walked up 138 flights of stairs on the day of Ki's death. Hae-jun realizes Seo-rae switched her phone for her client's and then climbed the mountain to push Ki off, resulting in her bruises and scratches. Confronting Seo-rae in her apartment, he concludes that she also forged the suicide note and, to her consternation, accuses her of getting close to him to destroy his evidence. Hae-jun says Seo-rae has destroyed his pride in his job and that, since meeting her, he has become "shattered"; nevertheless, he has covered up the evidence and instructs her to throw the incriminating phone into the sea before leaving.

Thirteen months later, Hae-jun has moved to Ipo to live with Jung-an after developing depression and more severe insomnia. At a fish market with Jung-an, he encounters Seo-rae with her new husband Im Ho-Shin, a business investor. The next day, Ho-Shin is found dead in his mansion's swimming pool. Hae-jun takes on the case and is convinced Seo-rae is the culprit. She admits only to draining the pool so that Hae-jun would not be disturbed by the blood. Sa Cheol-seong, a Chinese immigrant, soon confesses to killing Ho-Shin for defrauding his late mother of millions of dollars. Sa denies that Seo-rae played any role and reveals he had installed a tracker on Seo-rae's phone so he could find where Ho-Shin lived.

Hae-jun confronts Seo-rae at the mountain her grandfather left her. She reaches Hae-jun at the edge of the mountain and hugs him. Seo-rae reveals that she kept the phone with incriminating evidence from Ki's case and proposes that he use it as a way to "reinvestigate" her. They kiss passionately. Hae-jun returns home, where Jung-an suspects him of having worked with Seo-rae to murder Ho-shin, and leaves him.

The next day, Hae-jun learns from Sa that Seo-rae visited Sa's mother in the hospital on the day that she died. He concludes that Seo-rae slipped the mother the remaining fentanyl pills she had in her possession, knowing Sa would kill Ho-Shin as soon as his mother died. Hae-jun tracks Seo-rae's phone via the tracker Sa installed and chases her to a beach. Over the phone, she tells him that Ho-Shin had discovered a phone recording where Hae-jun told Seo-rae that he loved her, and that Ho-Shin had planned to expose their illicit relationship. Hae-jun does not recall telling Seo-rae that he loved her, though she says she began loving him as he stopped loving her. At the beach, he finds her empty car and the cell phone, which contains the recording of his instructions for Seo-rae to destroy the phone with evidence from Ki's case. Further out on the shore, Seo-rae digs a pit in the sand and gets in it as the tide rises, letting it drown and bury her. Hae-jun arrives at the beach and is unable to find Seo-rae, unaware that she is buried in the sand beneath him. He searches desperately for her and cries in anguish.

Production
The film is produced by Moho Film and is financed and distributed by CJ Entertainment. It began principal photography in October 2020.

Release
Decision to Leave was selected to compete for the Palme d'Or at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival to be held from 17 to 28 May 2022. It screened for the first time at the Lumière Grand Theater on 23 May 2022 and was subsequently released theatrically in South Korea on 29 June 2022. According to CJ E&M, the film was sold to 192 countries ahead of its premiere in competition at Cannes.

In April 2022, streaming service Mubi acquired distribution rights to the film in North America, the United Kingdom and Ireland, India, and Turkey, with a theatrical release preceding its streaming debut.

Decision to Leave held its North American premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2022, and its US premiere at Fantastic Fest Film Festival took place in the same month. It was released theatrically in the United States and United Kingdom on 14 October 2022, and was released in Australia theatrically by Madman Films on 20 October.

Box office
The film was released on 29 June 2022 on 1,374 screens. It opened at first place on Korean box office with 114,592 admissions. On 13 July, after two weeks of release, the film surpassed 1 million cumulative admissions.

, it is the tenth highest-grossing Korean film of 2022, with a gross of US$15,589,120 and 1,893,954 admissions.

Critical response
On Rotten Tomatoes, of  reviews of the film are positive, with an average rating of. The website's critics consensus reads "If Decision to Leave isn't quite on the same level as Park Chan-wook's masterpieces, this romantic thriller is still a remarkable achievement by any other metric." Metacritic assigned the film a weighted average score of 85 out of 100 based on 44 critic reviews, indicating "universal acclaim".

David Rooney of The Hollywood Reporter, praising the director Park Chan-wook, wrote "A world-class artist at the top of his game...all while navigating multilayered plots that continue to deliver surprises right up until the end. It's a luxury to put yourself as a viewer in such capable hands."

Peter Howell of Toronto Star rated the film 4 out of 4 and wrote "every frame is like a painting, with hints to character motivation and plot twists."

Rafael Motamayor of Slashfilm rated the film 7 out of 10 and wrote "This [the film] is not as surprising or innovative as director Park's earlier work, but it is still a fascinating and exquisitely directed film about desire, regret, and love."

Luke Goodsell of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation called the film "a testament to Park's undimmed talent...Decision to Leave is one of his best".

Wendy Ide gave it 5 stars out of 5 in The Guardian, describing it as an "enthralling, serpentine crime drama" that possesses "dangerously handsome cinematography, as precise as it is playful, is full of layers and flipped mirror images.

The Mountains and the Sea
Park Chan-wook has said that with Decision to Leave, he "wanted to film a Korean movie." This is clear in that much of the movie is driven by imagery of either the sea or mountains, both very common elements on the Korean peninsula. The imagery is also made explicit by Seo-rae's character when she tells Hae-jun the following line from Confucius: “The wise man admires water, the kind man admires mountains.” In Asian philosophy, the mountain symbolizes Confucius and upright virtuousness; meanwhile, water is the symbol of Lao Tzu and Taoism. The two elements, despite complimenting each other, are also opposed to each other and unable to come together, like the symbols of Yin and Yang. However, ultimately, the sea has the ability to beat the mountains by eroding them over time. Seo-rae's character is symbolized by the sea. Despite killing three people (her mother and two husbands) she is not captured by the detective. Notably, she kills her first husband atop a mountain and her second in a swimming pool. She then ultimately takes her own life at the end in the sea. Hae-jun, meanwhile, is the previously upright character symbolized by the mountains but now shattered. The two locations, Busan and Ipo, are also referenced as a mountainous and sea town, respectively. This imagery has been analyzed and debated online, including by both Korean and Chinese participants in the Korea Deconstructed series.