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A debut feature built around suspicion and an unlikely narrator
South Korean director Lee Ok-seop's debut feature, "Maggie," blends mystery and comedy in an unconventional story about trust, jealousy and suspicion. Produced as the 14th installment of the National Human Rights Commission of Korea's human rights film project, the 88-minute film premiered at the 23rd Busan International Film Festival in 2018 before opening in South Korean theaters on Sept. 26, 2019.
The story begins at Maria Love Hospital in Seoul, where an X-ray image apparently showing two people having sex in an examination room spreads throughout the hospital. Nurse Yeo Yun-young, played by Lee Joo-young, believes she and her boyfriend, Lee Seong-won, played by Koo Kyo-hwan, are the people in the image. She tries to resign, but assistant director Lee Gyeong-jin, played by Moon So-ri, refuses to accept her resignation. When Yun-young returns to work the following day, she finds that she and Gyeong-jin are apparently the only employees who have shown up.
Meanwhile, sinkholes begin appearing across Seoul. Seong-won, who has been unemployed, finds work with a sinkhole response team. During an overnight operation, he loses the platinum couple's ring he shares with Yun-young. When a woman claiming to be his former girlfriend approaches Yun-young, her doubts about their relationship deepen.
The film's central question — why people suspect one another — unfolds through increasingly strange events. A talking catfish named Maggie narrates the story, voiced by actress Chun Woo-hee. The supporting cast includes Kim Young-kwan, Park Kyung-hye, Yoon Jung-jae, Dong Bang-woo and Kwon Hae-hyo.
Festival recognition across Asia and North America
"Maggie" received three awards at its 2018 world premiere in Busan: the Citizen Critics' Award, the CGV Arthouse Award and the KBS Independent Film Award. Lee Joo-young also received the festival's Actor of the Year award for her performance. The CGV Arthouse Award, presented in the Korean Cinema Today-Vision section, included 10 million won in theatrical release support and additional in-kind marketing assistance.
The film went on to win the Audience Award for a feature at the 44th Seoul Independent Film Festival in 2018. International recognition followed in 2019, when it received the Grand Prize at the Osaka Asian Film Festival in Japan and the Uncaged Award in the feature-film category at the New York Asian Film Festival.
The New York festival screened the film for the first time in North America on July 13, 2019, at the SVA Theatre. Director Lee and lead actor Koo were announced as participants in an introduction and audience question-and-answer session. The film also screened at the International Film Festival Rotterdam in 2019.
In South Korea, Lee was nominated for Best New Director at the 40th Blue Dragon Film Awards. The film also received three preliminary nominations at the 2020 Wildflower Film Awards: Best Director for Lee, Best Actress for Lee Joo-young and Best Cinematography for Lee Jae-woo.
An unconventional film with divided critical reactions
International critics offered contrasting assessments of the film's unusual approach. Wendy Ide of Screen Daily described it at its Busan premiere as an "energetically absurdist debut," pointing to its progression from a single X-ray image into a story involving a talking fish, a deteriorating romantic relationship and strange geological phenomena in Seoul.
Other reviewers were less enthusiastic. Paige Lim of Screen Anarchy wrote that the film's whole did not equal the sum of its parts in a review following its Rotterdam screening. James Mudge of Eastern Kicks awarded it 1.5 stars, saying it felt more like a loosely connected collection of short films than a conventional feature.
On the film database TMDb, 22 users gave "Maggie" an average rating of 7.4 out of 10. South Korea's box office tracking system, KOBIS, lists two cumulative totals: 38,853 admissions and 328,164,828 won in revenue under its official statistics, based on September 2026 data; and 44,211 admissions and 380,124,268 won under its ticketing statistics, as of Oct. 30, 2026.
Lee said she cast Moon So-ri because she wanted the hospital administrator to combine an ability to engage in absurd behavior with an endearing side. Lee Joo-young was selected after the director saw her performance in a conversation scene with Lee Min-ji in the film "Jane." The film is also listed on Netflix's South Korean service.
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