Yongsoon

The director Shin Joon first made a short film called Yongsoon, Summer of 18 as his graduation project while majoring film in the Korea National University of Arts in 2014. The film was inspired from his early days as a instructor in a hagwon teaching middle school and highschool students. After producer Kim ji hye saw this short film, she asked him to make it into a full length feature film.The actor for the role of Cheyuk teacher was carefully selected to portray the kind nature the role possessed.The director revealed that his cinematography for the film was influenced by the 2015 film Our Little Sister directed by japanese director Hirokazu Kore-eda.^[5] The film was filmed in Okcheon in Chungcheong Province and thus the protagonists speak in the Chungcheong dialect . The director said that this setting was intentional because he was originally from Daejeon.^[6] The stepmother of Yongsoon was intentionally set as a mongolian to address the issue of discrimination towards foreiginers in South Korea.^[7]

Yongsoon is a teenage girl who lost her mom to cancer at an early age and her father remarries a foreign woman. One day she joins a school athletics club and discovers young love when she falls for her school's athletics team coach. Her friend Bbak-gyu loves her and write many love poems to her, but his love is unrequited. Yongsoon eventually finds out through Bbak-gyu that the athletics team coach has a lover, and to dissuade her from dating, Yongsoon lies that the team coach impregnated yongsoon.

• Lee Soo-kyung as Yong-soon
  • Kim Ha-yeon as Young Yong-soon
• Choi Deok-moon as Father
• Kim Dong-young as Bbak-gyu
• Park Keun-rok as Che-yook
• Jang Haet-sal as Moon-hee
• Choi Yeo-jin as English teacher
• Choi Chan-sook as Che-yook's mother