Director: Zhang Lu, 2010

Dooman River is writer-director Zhang Lu’s fascinating window into a rarely seen Korean community in rural China that revolves around 12-year-old Chang-ho, living with his grandfather and mute sister, Soon-Hee, along the frozen river-border with North Korea. Although fraught with unemployment and other tensions, his community is sympathetic toward the Korean refugees fleeing famine and misery; Chang-ho even bonds over soccer with one young border-crosser who comes scavenging for food for a sibling. But he soon turns on his new friend as suspicions mount against the illegal immigrants and his sister reels from unexpected aggression, provoking a quandary over his loyalties in an exquisitely detailed story of compassion and strife across an uneasy geopolitical border. (89 mins.)

In Korean and Mandarin Chinese, with English subtitles.

Movie review and trailer: [click here]