Film Review: The Final Semester (3학년 2학기) (2024) - South Korea
Rating: 8/10
Reviewed at Hong Kong Filmart 2025
2025 Review Count - 54
Support my goal of writing one film review per day in 2025 - https://www.patreon.com/neofilmreviews
Reviewed by Andrew Chan (Film Critics Circle of Australia)
In “The Final Semester”, director Lee Ran-hee crafts a story that hums with the quiet urgency of a generation caught between aspiration and obligation. This is not merely a coming-of-age tale—it’s a wrenching ode to the invisible hands that build societies, and the young bodies sacrificed to keep them running.
Chang-woo (Yoo Lee-ha, in a performance that simmers with restless vulnerability) is every teenager on the precipice of adulthood, yet his world is one of grease-stained uniforms and the metallic clang of machinery. Lee’s camera lingers on the dissonance: a boy buying his family dinner with his first paycheck, even as his classmates vanish into the factory’s shadowy corners, victims of accidents the film hauntingly implies but never exploits. There’s a scene—small, devastating—where Chang-woo stares at his reflection in a safety helmet, his face warped by the plastic. It’s a metaphor for the distortion of youth under industrial weight, executed with worthy subtlety.
Lee, whose “A Leave” dissected middle-aged disillusionment, here turns her gaze to the young. Her storytelling is unflinching but never cynical. She paints the factory not as a villain, but as a flawed ecosystem—a place where camaraderie flickers between conveyor belts, and where a teacher’s well-meaning platitudes (“This internship is your ticket to stability!”) ring hollow against the whir of saw blades. The film’s tension isn’t just in the accidents but in the quiet erosion of hope: How do you dream when your future is already stamped, approved, and filed?
Yet “The Final Semester” avoids despair. Chang-woo’s rebellion isn’t dramatic—it’s in the way he hesitates before signing a contract, or the resolve in his silence during a bureaucrat’s empty speech. Yoo embodies this duality masterfully; his eyes betray a storm beneath the stoicism, a performance that evokes memories of minimalist grace.
The film stumbles only in its pacing, lingering too long on subplots that echo rather than deepen its themes. Still, Lee’s direction—reminiscent of early Kore-eda in its empathy for the mundane—elevates it. When Chang-woo finally walks away from the factory gates, the camera doesn’t follow him. Instead, it pans to the next intern, stepping into his vacated spot. The cycle continues, but Lee ensures we see the cracks in the machine.
In a time when global cinema often shouts its messages, “The Final Semester” whispers—and the echo is deafening. It’s not just a film about South Korea’s youth; it’s about any society that asks its children to mortgage their futures for the illusion of progress. (Neo, 2025)