Interpreter-turned-screenwriter depicts struggles of North Korean defectors in latest film

She rose to fame as the genius interpreter for auteur Bong Joon-ho during his media campaign for "Parasite" (2019). Now, she's back with a new hat — a screenwriter for a North Korean defector film.

Choi Sung-jae, better known internationally as Sharon Choi, presents her latest work "Hana Korea," a film inspired by the lives of North Korean defectors as its co-writer. 

Directed by Danish documentary director Frederik Sølberg, the film follows Hye-sun, a young North Korean defector struggling to build a new life in South Korea. Sølberg first became interested in the subject after visiting South Korea in 2019. He spent five years interviewing more than 30 North Korean defectors before developing the story into a feature film in collaboration with a Korean independent film production company Seesaw Pictures and Denmark's Sonntag Pictures.

"Stories about North Korean defectors are often reduced to spectacle," Choi said. "In a world as divided as ours, I wanted to tell a story that more people could connect with emotionally through the journey of a young woman overcoming hardship."

And thus were born the female characters for the film.

Hye-sun from mountainous Ryanggang Province in North Korea, played by actor Kim Min-ha, has done whatever it takes to pay for her ailing mother's medication. 

Ahn Seo-hyun stars as Bo-mi, who was raised in China after leaving North Korea with her parents as a child. Sook-hee, played by Kim Joo-ryoung, is a defector originally from North Pyongan Province.

The film depicts the classes the defectors receive at a settlement support center called Hanawon to help them adjust to life in South Korea. It also shows everyday life in Seoul through the protagonists' eyes, making even the city's most familiar scenes feel unfamiliar.

"I wanted to breathe life into the quiet moments between the words," Choi said. "I kept asking myself, 'How does one finally find their voice after never having been able to speak their mind?'"

For the character of Hye-sun, Choi found that what mattered wasn't so much what she said as the nuance the actor could bring to the dialogue.

Specifically, Choi focused on the characters' guilt from leaving behind the people they love to save themselves — knowing they may never see their family again.

"Many North Korean defectors told me that adapting to life in South Korea isn't the hardest part," Choi said. "The real struggle often comes after they've settled in, when they're overwhelmed by guilt, loneliness and a sense of disconnection."

Despite being made on a relatively small production budget of just 1 billion won ($642,000), the film features internationally recognized actors such as Kim Min-ha of Apple TV+ series "Pachinko" (2022-24), Kim Joo-ryoung of Netflix series "Squid Game" (2021-25), and Ahn Seo-hyun, who starred in the film "Okja" (2017).

Choi joined the project after the film's producers began looking for a bilingual screenwriter who could work in both Korean and English. Choi wrote the English-language version of the script before briefly stepping away to work on another project.

She then returned to "Hana Korea" just before filming to complete the final draft together with Sølberg.

“I was drawn to the project because it combined an international collaboration with an opportunity to portray North Korean defectors through both insider and outsider perspectives,” Choi said alongside Sølberg during an interview in a cafe in Jongno District, central Seoul, on Thursday.

“[The writing process] involved frequent creative disagreement. We aimed to use individuals' emotional journeys, often overshadowed by larger, more dramatic narratives, as an ‘anchor’ for exploring the complex layers of the experiences [of North Korean defectors].”

Outside of screenwriting, Choi has steadily built a career as a filmmaker. A graduate of the University of Southern California's School of Cinematic Arts, she screened her experimental short film, “Self Portrait” (2019), at CAAMFest in San Francisco, a film festival that celebrates Asian American voices, before co-producing director Han Jun-hee's short film, “Mother of Three” (2020).

Choi also served as an interpreter on the set of Bong's Hollywood film “Mickey 17” (2025) and translated its screenplay.

The first draft of Choi's feature-length screenplay, about which Bong has said on multiple occasions he is “curious,” has reportedly already been completed.

"I didn’t think it was the right project for my directorial debut, so I've put it away in a drawer and kept revisiting it. In the process, other projects came along," Choi said. "There's nothing I'm officially attached to directly at the moment. I want to make films that are deeply personal yet universal by exploring collective human experiences.”

The film "Hana Korea" is scheduled to be released in theaters this coming Wednesday.

BY NA WON-JEONG [[email protected]]