Is Possible Love Worth 164 Minutes? Netflix’s Nov. 6 Korean Drama Draws on the Same Real Strike That Shaped Squid Game, and I Think It Deserves Your Best Night, Not Your Background Noise

Spoiler note: I describe only how the film begins and what the public record says about the real strike behind it. I don’t reveal how the story ends. One tip for later: Wikipedia’s plot summary of this film does give away the ending, so I used that page for production facts only.

Here’s what I keep coming back to. Possible Love runs about two hours and 45 minutes, it’s in Korean, and by every account I read it moves at its own pace. It’s about to land on Netflix, the place where most of us decide in about a minute whether something deserves our evening. I find that hopeful, honestly. Somebody at a streaming giant decided a slow, human, grown-up film deserved the biggest stage it could get.

I haven’t seen it yet, and that matters, so I’ll say it plainly: this is my pre-watch call, not a review. I built it from the festival record, the reviews and the real history behind the story. I’ll show you where the sources agree, where they differ (even the runtime, which Netflix lists differently from the official number) and where my own opinion starts.

Phase 1 · The Setup

Possible Love at a glance: the four facts you need before you press play

A quick word on that runtime. The Hollywood Reporter’s review lists 2 hours 44 minutes, which matches the 164 figure on festival and reference pages. Netflix’s page for the film shows 2 hours 47 minutes, and RogerEbert.com lists 165. Plan for about 2 hours 45 minutes and you’re covered either way.

What is Possible Love about? The setup, with no spoilers

Two years after a violent strike at a heavy-industry company, a laid-off welder named Ho-seok, his wife Mi-ok and their young son Cheol attend the funeral of a former co-worker. There they cross paths with Ye-ji, an ambitious documentary filmmaker, and her wealthy husband Sang-woo. Ye-ji decides Ho-seok and Mi-ok will be the subjects of her next documentary. What follows is a weekend, a camera and four people who each want something they don’t have. That’s where I stop.

Lee wrote the first draft more than a decade ago, according to The Hollywood Reporter’s interview as cited on Wikipedia, and the film was originally tied to a producer’s project to remake Krzysztof Kieślowski’s Dekalog as ten features. Lee says it does not adapt an episode, but that it is related to one of the commandments. Reviewers connect it to the one about coveting, which fits a film about two couples eyeing each other’s lives.

The money story is a small drama of its own. World of Reel reported that Lee’s producers backed out and public funding vanished, even after the lead actors agreed to pay cuts, until Netflix stepped in. Lee has said Netflix signed on right after reading the finished script and guaranteed him artistic freedom.

Phase 2 · The Real Strike

Is Possible Love a true story? Not exactly, and the difference is the whole point

The characters and the company in the film, SP Heavy Industries, are invented. But the strike at its center closely echoes a real one. Lee has said the story was inspired by a strike at a major company about ten years ago, and he never named it. Korea Herald, Dazed and other outlets identify it as the 2009 strike at SsangYong Motor’s plant in Pyeongtaek, south of Seoul. Here’s that history, as Korea Herald lays it out.

1. Jan. 2009

   SsangYong Motor, then Korea’s fifth-largest automaker, files for bankruptcy protection after sales plunge following the 2008 global financial crisis.

2. Apr. 2009

   The company announces plans to cut 2,646 jobs, about 36% of its workforce.

3. May–Aug. 2009

   Workers occupy the plant for 77 days, starting in May. It turns violent: in July a court orders the strikers out and police seal the gates, cutting off water and food. In early August police commandos are lowered onto the roofs by crane.

4. Aug. 6, 2009

   The union agrees to a deal that ends the occupation. Roughly half of those still inside go on unpaid leave with a promise of rehiring, the rest take voluntary retirement, and the 165 who refuse both are fired.

5. 2014–2023

   Courts mostly side with the company: the Supreme Court finds the layoffs legal in 2014 and holds the union responsible for the company’s losses in 2023. A police-appointed panel concludes in 2018 that officers used excessive force, and a 2022 Supreme Court ruling significantly cuts the damages the government could collect from the strikers.

6. May 4, 2020

   The last 35 laid-off workers walk back through the factory gates, 11 years after the strike began.

The film changes some things on purpose. Korea Herald notes it largely skips the armed standoff and never shows strikers turning away their own co-workers, presenting the strike as a peaceful united front. It spends its time instead on the families inside the fence and on the aftermath. That aftermath is real: a 2015 Korea University study found about half of the fired workers showed symptoms of post-traumatic stress, and the union says more than 30 workers and family members died by suicide or stress-related illness over the next decade. Fired workers and those who kept their jobs even came to call each other the dead and the living, the same split the film puts on screen.

Phase 3 · What Critics Say

Possible Love reviews: the scoreboard, and what a perfect score doesn’t tell you

Those scores move as reviews come in, so treat them as a snapshot. Being submitted for the Oscar means the film is in the race to be considered. It does not mean it has been nominated.

I’ll be straight about what a 100% means. It means 43 critics liked it. It doesn’t tell you whether you’ll like 164 quiet, subtitled minutes on a random Tuesday. That’s a different question, and I get to it in the last section.

Phase 4 · Lee’s Other Films

Which Lee Chang-dong film should you watch first? The order I’d use

Netflix says it has made Lee’s earlier films available for viewers around the world: Green Fish (1997), Peppermint Candy, Oasis (2002), Secret Sunshine (2007), Poetry (2010) and Burning (2018). Earlier rollouts were country by country, so check your region’s catalog. You don’t need any of them to follow Possible Love. If you want a warm-up anyway, here’s my order. I’m ranking by how well each one prepares you for this film, based on the record, not by which is best.

1. Heartbeat (Netflix, Nov. 2)

   Lee’s first short film, set in the world of Possible Love. A boy named Cheol runs home in fear for his mother, played by Jeon Do-yeon, with Sul Kyung-gu voicing his father. It premiered at the Jeonju International Film Festival and was made at the suggestion of the World Health Organization and the Beijing Contemporary Art Foundation. Same content note applies.

2. Burning (2018)

   His last feature before this one, an enigmatic thriller that competed for the Palme d’Or and won the FIPRESCI prize at Cannes. The best sense of how he lets a story unfold.

3. Secret Sunshine (2007)

   The film that won Jeon Do-yeon Best Actress at Cannes. Start here if her performance is why you’re coming.

4. Peppermint Candy or Oasis

   Sul Kyung-gu leads both. Oasis won Lee the Best Director prize at Venice in 2002.

5. Poetry (2010)

   Winner of Best Screenplay at Cannes. I’d save it for last, for when you’re hooked.

Phase 5 · My Take

What I think will make or break it: the camera inside the room

Here’s the part of this story that grabs me, and I want to be honest that I’m going on the setup and the reviews. The strike is the backdrop. The heart of the film, as I read it, is a documentary filmmaker who needs her subjects’ pain to make her movie, and a husband and wife who have to decide how much of that pain to let her have. The Guardian’s review frames the film as a study of exploitation and friendship. The Globe and Mail talks about the thin line between the stories we tell each other and the ones we tell ourselves.

I think that’s a brave subject for a film that’s about to be streamed into millions of homes. It’s a film about being watched, released on the most-watched platform there is. I don’t know yet whether Lee points the question back at his own camera, and that’s exactly what I want to find out.

Five things I’ll be watching for

1. Who holds the camera. And who decides what footage gets kept, and why.
2. How it treats money. Whether Sang-woo and Ye-ji’s wealth is a villain’s costume or something more human.
3. What it does with silence. Ho-seok barely speaks. I want to see how a film makes room for a man who can’t.
4. The moon. Two characters share memories of staring at the full moon. I’ll see whether it’s a symbol or just light.
5. Whether 164 minutes earns every one of them. The honest test of any slow film.

Phase 6 · Before You Watch

Should you watch Possible Love tonight, this weekend or later? My fit guide

This is my opinion, not a rule. Find the line that sounds like you.

How I’d watch it

• Pick a night with no hard stop. Count on about 2 hours 45 minutes.
• Check the title page on release day for audio and subtitle options, and turn subtitles on from the first minute.
• Put the phone in another room. That’s my own rule for this one.
• Want a gentler on-ramp? Watch Heartbeat first.
• Skip plot summaries. Some give away the ending.

Quick Answers

Possible Love questions, answered fast