Decision to Leave

The film follows married detective Jang Hae-jun (Park Hae-il), whose investigation of a man’s death leads him to the man’s widow, Chinese immigrant Song Seo-rae (Tang Wei). Hae-jun’s investigation of Seo-rae as a suspect gradually leads him to develop feelings towards her.

In April 2022, Decision to Leave was selected to compete for the Palme d’Or at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival, where Park Chan-wook won Best Director. The film was released theatrically on 29 June 2022 in South Korea. Mubi acquired the distribution rights for several territories, including North America, where it was released theatrically on 14 October 2022. Its streaming premiere began in Mubi on 9 December 2022, where it would later become the company’s most streamed film.

Decision to Leave received critical acclaim, being named one of the top 5 international films of 2022 by the National Board of Review. It was selected as the South Korean entry for Best International Feature Film at the 95th Academy Awards, making the December shortlist. Among the accolades and nominations it received are two BAFTA Award nominations at the 76th British Academy Film Awards, for Best Film Not in the English Language and Best Direction, seven wins from 13 nominations at the 43rd Blue Dragon Film Awards, and three wins from seven nominations at the 59th Baeksang Arts Awards.

Hae-jun and his partner, Soo-wan, encounter a case where a retired immigration officer, Ki Do-soo, is found dead at the foot of a mountain he often climbed. They interview his much younger wife, Song Seo-rae, an emigrant from China who works as a caretaker for seniors. They suspect her because of her insufficient displays of grief, a scratch on her hand, bruises on her legs and torso, and a tattoo of Ki’s initials in the manner that he also marked his belongings.

Hae-jun conducts further interviews with Seo-rae and conducts nightly stakeouts outside of Seo-rae’s apartment building, becoming infatuated with her in the process. Seo-rae observes him outside her building, and witnesses one of his other investigations in turn. Seo-rae’s Monday client says Seo-rae was with her on the day that Ki died, and camera footage is found showing Seo-rae outside her Monday client’s home shortly before Ki’s time of death. Questioned about her background, Seo-rae admits that in China she killed her terminally ill grandmother with fentanyl pills when requested to do so.

Before dying, she told Seo-rae to go to Korea to climb the mountain her Korean grandfather, an independence fighter in Manchuria, had left her. Seo-rae gives Hae-jun letters written by Ki admitting to corrupt business dealings, including a letter sent to a subordinate that Hae-jun interprets as a suicide note. Hae-jun rules that the death was a suicide despite Soo-wan’s doubts and informs Seo-rae that she is no longer a suspect.

Seo-rae and Hae-jun go on a date at a Buddhist temple, visit each other’s homes, and become close. At his apartment, Seo-rae burns Hae-jun’s photo evidence from her husband’s case, reasoning that Hae-jun’s insomnia is caused by his haunting cases. One day, substituting for Seo-rae at her Monday client, Hae-jun learns that Seo-rae and the client have the same model of cell phone, and that the client has dementia and does not know the day of the week. On the client’s phone, he sees that the housebound woman apparently walked up 138 flights of stairs on the day of Ki’s death.

Hae-jun realizes Seo-rae switched her phone for her client’s and then climbed the mountain to push Ki off, resulting in her bruises and scratches. Confronting Seo-rae in her apartment, he concludes that she also forged the suicide note and, to her consternation, accuses her of getting close to him to destroy his evidence. Hae-jun says Seo-rae has destroyed his pride in his job and that, since meeting her, he has become “shattered”; nevertheless, he has covered up the evidence and instructs her to throw the incriminating phone into the sea before leaving.

Thirteen months later, Hae-jun has moved to Ipo to live with Jung-an after developing depression and more severe insomnia. At a fish market with Jung-an, he encounters Seo-rae with her new husband Im Ho-Shin, a business investor. The next day, Ho-Shin is found dead in his mansion’s swimming pool. Hae-jun takes on the case and is convinced Seo-rae is the culprit. She admits only to draining the pool so that Hae-jun would not be disturbed by the blood. Sa Cheol-seong, a Chinese immigrant, soon confesses to killing Ho-Shin for defrauding his late mother of millions of dollars. Sa denies that Seo-rae played any role and reveals he had installed a tracker on Seo-rae’s phone so he could find where Ho-Shin lived.

Hae-jun confronts Seo-rae at the mountain her grandfather left her. She reaches Hae-jun at the edge of the mountain and hugs him. Seo-rae reveals that she kept the phone with incriminating evidence from Ki’s case and proposes that he use it as a way to “reinvestigate” her. They kiss passionately. Hae-jun returns home, where Jung-an suspects him of having worked with Seo-rae to murder Ho-shin, and leaves him.

The next day, Hae-jun learns from Sa that Seo-rae visited Sa’s mother in the hospital on the day that she died. He concludes that Seo-rae slipped the mother the remaining fentanyl pills she had in her possession, knowing Sa would kill Ho-Shin as soon as his mother died. Hae-jun tracks Seo-rae’s phone via the tracker Sa installed and chases her to a beach. Over the phone, she tells him that Ho-Shin had discovered a phone recording where Hae-jun told Seo-rae that he loved her, and that Ho-Shin had planned to expose their illicit relationship.

Hae-jun does not recall telling Seo-rae that he loved her, though she says she began loving him as he stopped loving her. At the beach, he finds her empty car and the cell phone, which contains the recording of his instructions for Seo-rae to destroy the phone with evidence from Ki’s case. Further out on the shore, Seo-rae digs a pit in the sand and gets in it as the tide rises, letting it drown and bury her. Hae-jun arrives at the beach and is unable to find Seo-rae, unaware that she is buried in the sand beneath him. He searches desperately for her and cries in anguish.