‘I Want to Go Back!’: Lee Chang-dong Called Sul Kyung-gu Back Four Times, Now in Netflix’s Possible Love

Featured photo: Sul Kyung-gu. Photo: Harald Krichel / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Sul Kyung-gu’s charm is that he shows a man coming apart with his body before any line of dialogue does. In 1999, on the railroad tracks in Peppermint Candy, he screamed, “I want to go back!” Director Lee Chang-dong has called that man back four times: Oasis (2002), the voice in the short film Heartbeat (2022), and Possible Love (2026), which opens worldwide on Netflix on November 6. Of his new role, Ho-seok, he said: “There were no lines, so I did it with my body” (TV Daily).

I’ll be honest: when I read his confession that he couldn’t hold back his “inner tears” during the applause after the Venice screening, my nose stung as a fan. “It felt like I was seeing a real film in Venice, more than when I watched it in Korea. (…) The whole set unfolded before me like a panorama.” Now the whole world gets to see the reason for those tears.

November 6, 2026: Ho-seok in Possible Love

Possible Love follows laid-off worker Ho-seok (Sul Kyung-gu) and his wife Mi-ok (Jeon Do-yeon), who meet documentary director Ye-ji (Jo Yeo-jeong) and her husband Sang-woo (Zo In-sung) when Ye-ji sets out to film them, and the two couples face each other’s very different lives and hidden desires. Ho-seok worked at a big company’s factory, joined a strike against restructuring, and lost his job at the end of it (Kwangju Ilbo). The film won the Grand Jury Prize (Silver Lion) at the Venice International Film Festival in September.

• A father built with his body. “I think I built a body that had done labor,” Sul said, describing Ho-seok as “a character who symbolizes the most universal Korean masculinity” and “a generation that lived through hardship but couldn’t express it and suffered inside.” Audience one-line reviews came back saying “I am Ho-seok” and “My father is exactly like Ho-seok,” he said (TV Daily).
• A jacket swapped with the director. At an audience talk at the Busan International Film Festival, Lee Chang-dong revealed that when his laid-off-worker lead showed up in his own clothes, he said, “You can’t wear something like this,” and swapped jackets with him (Hankook Ilbo).
• A lovable grumble. At the same event, Sul joked, “I hated Zo In-sung and Jo Yeo-jeong. They were so gentle and considerate that I got scolded by Jeon Do-yeon even more,” and the audience burst out laughing.
• Blue Dragon calls his name. In the Blue Dragon Film Awards nominations announced October 28, he was nominated for Best Actor. All four of Possible Love‘s leads were nominated in all four acting categories, and the ceremony is November 25 (Good Morning Economy, Harper’s Bazaar Korea).

Where to watch: Netflix film Possible Love, premiering worldwide Friday, November 6, 2026 — Netflix (US and Korea, checked October 31, 2026). More on the film: Lee Chang-dong’s Possible Love, Zo In-sung, Jeon Do-yeon.

Also read: Go Min-si Makes Even Predictable Scenes New. Netflix's Dead-End Job Is Next

November 2: Heartbeat, where his voice arrived first

Four days before Possible Love, Lee Chang-dong’s first short film, Heartbeat, came to Netflix worldwide on November 2. Made at the suggestion of the World Health Organization and Beijing Contemporary Art Foundation, it’s a film about depression that first screened at the 2022 Jeonju International Film Festival. Jeon Do-yeon plays the mother of the boy Cheol-i (Kim Geon-woo), and Sul Kyung-gu is the voice of Cheol-i’s father. Subtitles include English, Spanish, Chinese and French (Dispatch, Maxmovie).

There’s no official trailer yet, so this official Jeonju festival event video stands in for one.

Where to watch: Netflix short film Heartbeat, worldwide from November 2, 2026 — search Netflix.

Filmography: from the railroad tracks to Ho-seok

• Mid-1990s, years on the stage. He built his acting body playing role after role on stage in the rock musical Subway Line 1 (Wikipedia).
• 1999, Peppermint Candy. He played a man’s collapse told backward across 20 years, winning Best New Actor at the Baeksang Arts Awards and Best Actor at the Blue Dragon Film Awards (Wikipedia).

• 2002, Oasis. He reunited with Lee Chang-dong, who won the Silver Lion for Best Director at Venice for the film.

Where to watch: Peppermint Candy and Oasis are on Netflix in Korea; in the US they’re on Film Movement Plus and Kanopy (JustWatch, checked October 31, 2026).

• 2003, Korea’s first “10-million actor.” Silmido became the first Korean film to pass 10 million admissions (about 11.08 million), making him Korea’s first “10-million actor” (Korea Economic Daily, Wikipedia).

• 2013, Hope. He played a father trying to protect his child and won Best Actor (film) at the Baeksang Arts Awards.

• 2017, The Merciless. Invited to Cannes’ Midnight Screenings, the film earned him a devoted fandom.

• 2022, Kingmaker. As political fighter Kim Woon-beom, he won Best Actor (film) at the Baeksang Arts Awards again (Wikipedia).

Twenty-seven years ago, a man on the railroad tracks screamed that he wanted to go back. Now, without a word, he cries for a whole generation of fathers with his body. I’ll meet him as Ho-seok on November 6, and I’ll be waiting, hands clasped, for his name to be called on the Blue Dragon stage on November 25.

Sources

• TV Daily: BIFF press conference, Hankook Ilbo: BIFF audience talk, Kwangju Ilbo: Possible Love synopsis
• Good Morning Economy: Blue Dragon nominations, Harper’s Bazaar Korea
• Dispatch: Heartbeat on Netflix, Maxmovie
• Wikipedia: Sul Kyung-gu, Korea Economic Daily: Silmido