Decision to Leave

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The Movie in 3 Sentences

• Decision to Leave follows a detective investigating the death of a man who falls from a mountain, only to become increasingly drawn to the dead man’s mysterious wife. What begins as a murder investigation slowly turns into a restrained, obsessive romance. The movie keeps shifting between suspicion and longing, making it hard to tell whether the detective is solving the case or losing himself inside it.
• At its core, the film is about desire disguised as duty. Park Chan-wook turns the detective story into a study of emotional self-deception: people who think they are being careful, rational, and controlled while quietly unraveling. It is less about whether love is real and more about what love can make people hide, justify, and destroy.
• "Decision to Leave" was in fact inspired by a Korean love song "Angae" (or "Mist") sung by Jung Hoon Hee in the 1960's. In the song, someone, who has lost their lover in the past, gets lost in the fog. We speak of "brain fog" or "clouding of consciousness" when describing the experience of indecisiveness and lack of focus, which are also signs of depression.