New US Trailer for Korean Call Center Drama ‘Aloners’ About Isolation
by Alex Billington
May 24, 2023
Source: YouTube
“Do you make a habit of being pissed off all the time?” Film Movement has revealed an official US trailer for an indie thriller from Korea called Aloners, marking the feature directorial debut of filmmaker Hong Seong-eun. This premiered in 2021 and opened in Korea that year, while also playing at the Toronto, Zurich, San Sebastian, and Hamburg Film Festivals. It’s finally getting a release on VOD in this US this summer – after waiting a few years. Jina is the top employee at a call center, despite talking to customers all day, she has shut out the world beyond her headset. When training a friendly new hire, her icy armor is threatened forcing her to confront why she isolates herself. The film is riffing on the Korean ‘honjok‘ – a phenomenon of young people who live alone and skirt social interaction – to examine the personal traumas of loss and alienation. This stars Gong Seung-yeon, Jung Da-eun, Seo Hyun-woo, Park Jeong-hak, and Kim Hannah. It looks intriguing, though lacking in style… An honest story of how brutal the world can be now.
Here’s the official US trailer (+ poster) for Hong Seong-eun’s Aloners, direct from FM’s YouTube:
Jina (Gong Seung-yeon) is the top employee at a call center, but despite talking to customers all day, she has shut out the world beyond her headset; she lives alone, eats alone, sleeps alone, and her cell phone is her constant companion. When one day she’s tasked with training a friendly and naive new hire (Jung Da-eun), her icy armor is threatened. At the same time, she must navigate an incessantly ingratiating new neighbor, and increasingly urgent phone calls from her father, leaving Jina teetering on the edge of an existential crisis, forcing her to confront why she has isolated herself all these years. Aloners, originally known as Honja Saneun Saramdeul or 혼자 사는 사람들 in Korean, is both written and directed by Korean filmmaker Hong Seong-eun, making her feature directorial debut with this after studying at Hankyoreh Film Academy. This initially premiered at the 2021 Jeonju Film Festival a few years ago. Film Movement will debut Aloners direct-to-VOD starting June 9th, 2023 this summer. For details, visit their official site.
