Kim Min-ha's 'Hana Korea' to be released in July after winning the Busan Audience Award

Kim Min-ha will meet moviegoers this July with the film . While her recent news of losing 9kg and her changed appearance became a hot topic first, the more important change in this film is the direction of her acting rather than her physical appearance. Playing the role of Hye-seon, a woman who leaves North Korea to start a new life in South Korea, Kim calmly follows the anxiety and hope of a person who must endure each day even after arriving in an unfamiliar place.

Hye-seon, whom you should see before the 9kg weight loss

is set to be released domestically on July 8. A South Korea-Denmark co-production based on a true story, the film is written and directed by Danish director Frederik Sjöberg, with Sharon Choi credited as a co-writer. Kim Min-ha stars alongside Kim Joo-ryoung and Ahn Seo-hyun. Kim Min-ha's recent weight loss is known to be a change tied to preparations for her next project rather than . Therefore, when watching this work, it is more appropriate to look at the expression with which the character Hye-seon arrives in Korea and how she tries to live her life again, rather than focusing on numbers.

In an interview, Kim Min-ha said, "Rather than the subject of being a North Korean defector, I saw the person named Hye-seon first." This statement aligns with the key viewing point of the film. While the description of being a female defector helps one understand the character quickly, it can simultaneously oversimplify a person's life. What Kim Min-ha held onto was not a grand backstory, but Hye-seon's heart—trying to make friends, find things she likes, and get through each day on her own strength.

The trailer shows the time after arrival

The main trailer begins with a scene where Hye-seon arrives in Korea by plane and undergoes identity verification. This is followed by the settlement support facility for North Korean defectors known as Hanawon, unfamiliar workplaces, and new relationships. In this process, rather than exaggerating the moment of escape, the film focuses longer on the time of adaptation that begins after arrival. Hye-seon's bewilderment and cautious expressions create a tension closer to reality than melodramatic tears.

The colors of the posters also support this direction. The blue-toned arrival image first shows loneliness through Hye-seon's stiff face sitting in an airplane seat, while the red-toned image reveals the fear of a person lowering themselves before a new life. If Kim Min-ha made her face known to global viewers as the young Sunja in , is a stage to confirm what kind of weight of character she can carry on her own after that.

The first reaction told by the Busan Audience Award

received the Audience Award in the Flash Forward section at the 30th Busan International Film Festival. This section introduces new feature films by young directors from outside Asia, and the Audience Award is an award that directly reflects the reactions of the audience who visited the festival. While the name of the award alone cannot determine box office success, the fact that a film with an unfamiliar subject and a calm tone reached the audience who saw it first is the most reliable signal before its release.

This work is also an important crossroads for Kim Min-ha. While pictorials and recent photos showing a star's transformation are quickly consumed, what ultimately determines an actor's next step is the time they spend holding their ground on the screen. The next checkpoint for lies in whether audiences, after its July 8 release, accept Hye-seon as a person beyond the description of being a female North Korean defector.