Little Forest: A Soothing Ode to Nature, Food & Identity

You know that sort of film that makes you feel warm and happy inside? That kind of story that seems to embrace you, give you room to breathe and a pat on your back? If you’re looking for that kind of movie, let me introduce you to Little Forest.

My mother is a huge fan of Yim Soon-rye’s Little Forest (2018), having watched it for the first time years ago during an Online Korean Film Festival organised by the Istituto Culturale Coreano in Italy. I’m familiar with the original story, which comes from Igarashi Daisuke’s manga of the same name. In 2014-2015, Japan released its first cinematic adaptation, a two-part film directed by Mori Junichi. Entitled Little Forest: Summer/Autumn and Little Forest: Winter/Spring, the two films count on the lovely Hashimoto Ai in the lead role of Ichiko.

After reading Hwang Bo-reum’s Welcome to the Hyunam-dong Bookshop, I realised that both stories ran along some of the same lines. My mother was looking for an opportunity to rewatch it so we decided to relish it one Saturday night.

And what a warm embrace it was.

This review contains some spoilers. Read it at your own risk! But if you prefer, you can check our spoiler-free summary at the bottom!

Yim Soon-rye’s Little Forest: Recreating Igarashi’s Manga with a Humanist Touch

Little Forest tells the story of Hye-won (Kim Tae-ri), a young woman who fails to pass the national qualification to become a teacher in Seoul and decides to return to the little countryside village where she grew up. Back home, Hye-won reunites with her childhood friends, Jae-ha (Ryu Jun-yeol) and Eun-sook (Jin Ki-joo), and finds in nature and cooking the peace she needs to move on.

Let’s start on a quick note about the director, Yim Soon-rye. Yim is considered to be one of the most influential Korean female filmmakers, eschewing the typical blockbusters for a proper cinéma d’auteur. One of the emblems of the Korean New Wave, Yim’s films usually tackle social issues, nature, and feminism. You can clearly see Yim’s fingerprints all over Little Forest: the film is a visual ode to the magic of nature, its colours, shapes, and timing. In addition to that, it delicately approaches a very current social problem: the rat race towards success in the big city. And finally, Little Forest is a very feminist film, portraying all female characters with depth and realism and depicting their relationships (especially between Hye-won and Eun-sook and Hye-won and her mother, played by Moon So-ri) as tangible, believable, and human connections.

Little Forest is a masterfully crafted film, offering its audience a mostly sensorial experience. As the sounds of the environment blend with the score, the colours of the trees, flowers, and food give life to every shot, and the characters act and react with their cooking, we feel the film. We can feel the breeze, smell the flowers, taste the warm soup on a cold day. Hye-won’s journey is our own and we find ourselves growing and learning alongside her.

As Hye-won experiences the seasons in the countryside, lives her life according to the seasonal changes, and enjoys the company of her two childhood friends, her perspective of life changes. She goes through a journey of discovery — of herself and her mother, nurturing a newfound sense of love for her own self, the village, and the people around her.

How Audiences Are Brought into the Little Forest Universe

Little Forest is full of stunning, bright wide shots that perfectly depict all four seasons. In these shots, we usually have Hye-won, riding her bicycle calmly, as if that universe she’s now a part of has finally given her the freedom she’s been looking for. Medium shots and close-ups bring us closer to the characters, the food, and the little details that make nature such an enchanting and present character in the story. The inserts of animals, insects and plants show how varied and gorgeous nature is. And as you see Hye-won reproduce and alter her mother’s dishes, all using natural ingredients, you’re blessed with beautiful close-ups of mouth-watering food that will definitely encourage you to head straight to the kitchen after you finish the film. In contrast, Hye-won’s scenes in Seoul are shown in dull colours and sharper lines in the first two-thirds of the film.

The quiet rhythm of the script follows Hye-won as she, slowly but surely, takes step after step towards her future and lets the different seasons present her with something new. Visually and auditorily, the film is a perfect mirror of nature: its pace may be slow but it’s perfect to allow for understanding and growth, its colours are vivid, all its compositions feel organic, and the score is tender and comforting, making use of wind sounds and birds chirping to create a bridge with what you see.

Besides the visuals and the narrative, characterisation is also flawlessly done thanks to a sharp script and charming performances. The endlessly talented Kim Tae-ri leads Little Forest with soul and strength. She skillfully navigates all sorts of emotions, from fear to courage, from joy to sorrow, from innocence to maturity. Ryu Jun-yeol and Jin Ki-joo deliver entertaining performances full of heart. Moon So-ri also embodies that mother who always seems to know the right answer, a loving parent who shows a very strong personality. As expected of Moon, Hye-won’s mom is a nuanced, intriguing character.

Working with Internal Conflict: Who Is Our Protagonist?

The film focuses on Hye-won’s internal conflict, as she needs to hit reset after failing the teaching qualification, understand exactly what she wants and come to terms with her mother’s departure.

So, who is Hye-won? When Hye-won was very little, her family moved from Seoul to her father’s little village when he got sick. After he passed away, her mother decided to raise her in his childhood home. The two of them had a tight-knit relationship as they lived off the land and cooked together while Hye-won faced the challenges of growing up. When Hye-won was about to finish high school, her mother moved out leaving behind a letter but not telling Hye-won where she was going next. Hye-won, abandoned and alone, responded to her mother’s departure with a mix of anger, pride, and curiosity. She decided to prove to her mother that she could live on her own and succeed.

So here we have our protagonist: a girl who was raised within the giving arms of nature, nourished with her mother’s excellent cooking, but dreaming of the endless excitement and success that the big city can, technically speaking, offer you. Once she moves to Seoul, she realises life isn’t that straightforward. Her part-time jobs exhaust her, pay little, and don’t give her any sense of accomplishment. The food, expensive and pre-packaged, don’t sustain her the way her mom’s cuisine used to. To top that off, she fails her exam. Hye-won finds herself lost, not knowing exactly who she is and what she wants. But she’s hungry. “So very hungry,” as she tells Eun-sook.

Cooking brings people together. It not only nourishes the body but also the soul. Hye-won has always found comfort in food, thanks to her mom’s care and dedication in the kitchen. That also means that cooking is a means of communication in Little Forest. Hye-won’s mom strengthens her bond with Hye-won through her dishes, conveying joy and hope with every spoonful. It’s through cooking her mom’s dishes that she re-establishes a line of communication with her mother, which allows her to finally understand her. She stops seeing her mom as just her mom and sees her as a human being with her own needs and wishes. As she matures, Hye-won forgives her and the weight it lifts adds to her newfound freedom to find her own desires.

Hye-won comes back home looking for answers. At first, she just wants to hide from the world. She’s reached her limit and she needs to stop (which also reminds me of Days at the Morisaki Bookshop). With support from her friends and the community around her, she finds the sense of accomplishment she’d been looking for in growing, harvesting, and cooking food. Nature’s clock aligns with her own, as she slows down and starts planting the seeds that will grow and give flavour to tomorrow.

The Role of Friendship in Hye-won’s Story

While Hye-won tries to find her answers in her little village, her childhood friend Jae-ha came back home exactly because he’d already found his answers in the big city. Jae-ha had moved to Seoul and started working at a company. The suit-and-tie lifestyle didn’t appeal to him, though, as he realised that the business life wouldn’t allow him to create and make his own decisions the way he’d like. He stands up to his decision and chooses to move back home, learn how to properly cultivate an orchard and lead a life fully designed by him. He comes back not to escape, but because he knew that’s what he was looking for. His tale teaches much to Hye-won, who needs to learn how to be a bit more like Jae-ha and figure herself out.

Hye-won’s best friend, Eun-sook, dreams of the big city with big rose-coloured glasses. However, she decides to stay and create her own success story working at the local bank. The challenges she faces there are quite similar to the ones she’d face if she were working in Seoul and her moments complaining to Hye-won are golden. She might live in a tiny little village but it isn’t that easy for her to just quit. After all, she has her own goals. Hye-won and Eun-sook love, support, and embolden each other as they are both trying to grasp exactly how to shape her own lives.

With Hye-won and Eun-sook, we also have the perfect example of male influence in a female friendship. Eun-sook is in love with Jae-ha and she’s naturally scared that Jae-ha and Hye-won’s relationship might change into something else. She clearly declares her intentions to Hye-won, who doesn’t have that sort of interest in Jae-ha and, instead, encourages Eun-sook to pursue him more actively. There’s no jealousy bout or fight. Everything feels so natural and human it’s refreshing.

[Spoiler-free] Should You Watch Yim Soon-rye’s Little Forest?

A magnificent essay on self-discovery and the search for true meaning in life, Little Forest asks us to stop, take a deep breath, and observe. It reminds us of the beauty that surrounds us, the one we fail to acknowledge in the fast pace of our everyday life. But it also raises questions: Are we just letting ourselves be carried away? Are we actively making decisions that reflect who we are and what we want?

Hye-won’s journey shows us that there are so many little things that can bring us joy if only we stop to appreciate them. It tells us that it’s okay to slow down and give yourself time to reconnect with yourself. It portrays nature as an extraordinary and mysterious force that evolves bit by bit, adapts and resurges, grows quietly in winter, under the darkness and cold, and blossoms fully in spring, shooting towards the sun. Inspired by her surroundings, Hye-won re-establishes this bond, not only with herself but with nature itself, allowing it to shape her process of healing and growing and giving her the warmth and shelter she needs to bloom.

You can watch Little Forest (2018) on:

Comparing Little Forest (2014-2015, Japan) & Little Forest (2018, Korea)

I feel that the Japanese and Korean versions of Little Forest are two similar yet completely different films. Sounds obvious but I’ll say it anyway: one is very Japanese and one is very Korean — which gives us two unique perspectives of the same story. Some shots are exactly the same, the photography of nature is stunning in both versions, and even the score is very similar too.

The Japanese Little Forest feels like a mini-series with four episodes covering each season. Curiously enough, even though the story is pretty much the same, the two (three) films focus on completely different themes.

Ichiko is a much more introspective protagonist, resulting in a significantly more sober and pragmatic film. Her story, far more focused on her own relationship with her hometown and her sense of responsibility towards her community, is told through narration. On the other hand, Hye-won’s journey is not only of self-discovery but also one of motherhood, in which she comes to understand the influence that her mother has had in her life, the love she’s received, and the individual her mother is beyond her role as a parent. Her story is shared in conversations, with constant dialogue that is sharp and full of wit.

Mori’s Little Forest is a lot more straightforward, heavily focusing on the natural environment and the processes of harvesting and cooking. Ichiko’s relationship with her mother plays a very small part in the plot; her friends don’t show up that often, and she leads a fairly solitary life. As a result, the story conveys the peace and enjoyment that one can find in one’s own company. She teaches her audience how to cook and how to live in sync with nature, her Little Forest being almost a diary of a period in her life. Spanning almost four hours, Ichiko’s story is one of cycles: you often see her doing the same things in different seasons. But that repetition is vital since it leads to her final realisation at the end of the film.

And so, we can say that both versions are very character-driven, but the Japanese Little Forest focuses more on the relationship between people and nature. Those perspectives on the original story also show up in the use of modernity in the narrative. It’s interesting to see how much more modern the Korean version is: we see Hye-won using smartphones or her friend saying that he learned to farm with the help of the internet. Meanwhile, Ichiko’s lifestyle seems to be completely oblivious to the existence of technology, all her resources being the tangible nature around her.

Both are slow-paced odes to nature, in which the protagonists live in sync with the harvest, explore different facets of the female identity, and appreciate food for its ability to nourish our hearts. While Yim’s cinematography is a tad more traditional, the Japanese Little Forest reminds us of its source material in montages with split screens galore, giving it a more manga-like aesthetic.

You can watch Little Forest: Summer/Autumn on:

And you can watch Little Forest: Winter/Spring on:

Which One Should I Watch First?

I believe the order doesn’t matter as much as your mood. If you’re looking for a quieter, more sober tale of self-discovery and the relationship between individual, community, and nature, I’d start with Mori Junichi’s Little Forest. Just remember to watch Summer & Autumn first and then, Winter & Spring.

If you’re looking for something a bit more cheerful and dynamic, start with Yim Soon-rye’s Little Forest. The Korean version emphasises motherhood and friendship and gives space for more social commentary.

Whether you start with the Japanese or Korean version, you’ll find in Little Forest a place where cooking is a tool for discovery, where women are complex, fascinating individuals, and where we can reflect on and question our own lives. More than that, Little Forest reminds us that nature is an extraordinary, magical entity — one that heals, shelters, and nurtures.

Regardless of the version, Little Forest is a powerful tale that will surely soothe your heart.

No time for this long analysis? Then pin our spoiler-free summary!