Canola Film Review

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Canola – Film Review


Canola (2016), a South Korean movie, is set on the beautiful Jeju Island. A little 7 years old Hye-ji sat at the edge of a canola flower field and waited for her poor grandma Gye-choon who works as a haenyeo or a sea woman, a female diver harvesting a variety of molluscs, seaweed, and other sea life from the ocean around the island without a compressed air tank.

For grandma Gye-choon, Hye-ji is her world, after her father passed away and her mother ran away to Seoul. Grandma will give Hye-ji everything as long as she is happy, including buying her an expensive set of crayons that she paid for with eel because Hye-ji loves to draw. Hye-ji loves her crayons. She made pictures of everyone that she knows, but she never uses her gold crayon as that crayon is a special crayon for her grandma.

One day, they had to go to a wedding. They went to a market to buy nice clothes for Hye-ji to wear at the wedding. But Hye-ji disappeared amongst the crowded market.

12 years later, a 19 years old Hye-ji who now lives in Seoul, has turned into a troubled teenager. She lives with her best friend. They were so poor that they had to steal to make a living and lived in a house without electricity in a cold winter in Seoul. Because they were so desperate to get money, Hye-ji agreed to help two pimps to scam a man. But in the motel where they scam this man, they have an argument that ends up in fighting. The two pimps hit the man. They thought the man was dead. They agree to run away for a while until this matter calms down. In their hiding, Hye-ji sees a picture of a missing girl on a milk carton. It was her.

She decides to go back to Jeju Island for her grandma. Grandma was wondering why she didn’t come to her earlier. It turns up that Hye-ji was kidnapped by her own mother twelve years ago. Her mother told Hye-ji that her grandma was dead. But after her mum passed away in a car accident, her stepfather put her in an orphanage.

Her grandma insists that Hye-ji goes back to high school. She had a very good art teacher in high school who taught her to “find light”, not only for her drawing but also for her life. Her art teacher convinces Hye-ji to enter her artwork for an art competition in Seoul. She entered a painting called 'Confession.' Hye-ji confessed a dark secret that she tried to conceal from everyone, including her grandma.

Canola portrays an an-unconditionally love of a grandmother, finding an identity and a tight-knit relationship within people on a small island. Beautiful cinematography, great acting of Kim Go-eun ( Tune in for Love , Guardian: The Lonely and Great God ) and veteran actress Youn Yuh-jung will warm your heart in this heart-wrenching movie.

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