The Gorals (산양들)
Director – Yoo Jae-wook – 2025 – South Korea – Cert. – 107m
****
Four problem high school girls bunk off their special college application class to start a zoo in the woods with the school zoo’s animals – from LKFF, the London Korean Film Festival 2026 which runs in cinemas from Monday, November 2nd to Tuesday, November 16th
In danger of failing to secure themselves college places, four high school girl students are put in to a special class to help them get in somewhere. In-hye (indie director “Grace” Park Hye-jin) is busy delivering vaccinations to the ducks, rabbits and chickens in the school zoo. She likes the solitude of the job, but on this occasion, Seo-hee (Lee Seung-yeon) is watching from outside the enclosure, having been sent to find her along with two other girls, Lee Jung-ae (Park Hyo-eun) in class 2 and Kim Soo-min (Choi Soo-in) in class 1, by teacher Miss Kim Ah-tae (Kim See-eun from The Handmaiden, Park Chan-wook, 2016).
Teacher Kim wants the four of them to work on their interview skills so they can apply for a college – any college – and get in. Somewhere. Anywhere. She gives them each a huge directory of colleges and courses. They have a week to decide. But none of them is particularly motivated to do so.
Soo-min, whose parents run one of the restaurants that supplies the school’s meals, foolishly helps secret boyfriend and school president candidate Kim Chan-young (Lee Hyo-je), currently campaigning to improve school meals promises, to shoot a video indicting her parents’ food preparation as substandard, seemingly oblivious to the fact that it might close down their business.
After Seo Hee is reprimanded for carrying a pocketknife on her person, she goes to help In-hye with the zoo, a job which seems to be agreeable to both of them. Seo-hee wants to be an influencer, so they start filming the animals and decorating the hitherto lacklustre school zoo premises. For their efforts, they get awarded the Creative Talent Award by Kim Chan-young at a special ceremony.
Substituting new animals in the zoo, they move the original animals out into their hastily created compound in the nearby woods, christening the place The Gorals after a nomadic, Carpathian tribe one of them has seen in a documentary. It’s not long before the other member of the four person special class join them.
This deceptively simple little film is full of memorable moments – the hapless Jung-ae appearing with a post-it note on her back proclaiming “idiot – LOL” on her back, In-hae boldly wading into a pond to rescue their duck having been told she can be the groups leader if she succeeds, the four girls sitting in class, muddy trainers and jeans beneath their desks.
Towards the end, the narrative ups the ante with a local proclamation of bird flu and the mass slaughter of poultry, with the four in a car trying to bypass quarantine roadblocks to transport their beloved duck to safety. This is preceded by thoroughly appropriate if distressing shots of wheelie bin loads of live poultry being emptied by industrial machines into (off lower picture frame) larger containers.
The whole thing is a great portrait of misfits, those pupils that simply don’t fit in at school – and, by inference, wider South Korean society. The film appears quite modest and almost parochial in its aims – it’s basically about four teenage girls who set up an alternative school zoo in the woods yet, at the same time, it has bigger fish to fry (or animals to rescue), providing something of an indictment against a society where getting a college place is prized above all, and anyone who doesn’t fit that model is written off.
We marvel as the four girls learn a whole roster of skills working on the Gorals completely outside of any proscribed school curriculum, activity or acceptable social model. There’s something deeply and commendably subversive about that.
And without ever becoming sickly sweet, the whole thing has an undeniable charm.
The Gorals plays in LKFF, the London Korean Film Festival 2026which runsin cinemas from Monday, November 2nd to Tuesday, November 16th.
FURTHER PROGRAMME INFORMATION:
Facebook: @theLKFF
Twitter: @koreanfilmfest
Instagram: @london_korean_film_festival
Homepage: https://www.koreanfilm.co.uk/
Trailer (no subtitles):
The Gorals (산양들)
Director – Yoo Jae-wook – 2025 – South Korea – Cert. – 107m
****
Four problem high school girls bunk off their special college application classto start a zoo in the woods with the school zoo’s animals – from LKFF, the London Korean Film Festival 2026 which runs in cinemas from Monday, November 2nd to Tuesday, November 16th
In danger of failing to secure themselves college places, four high school girl students are put in to a special class to help them get in somewhere. In-hye (indie director “Grace” Park Hye-jin) is busy delivering vaccinations to the ducks, rabbits and chickens in the school zoo. She likes the solitude of the job, but on this occasion, Seo-hee (Lee Seung-yeon) is watching from outside the enclosure, having been sent to find her along with two other girls, Lee Jung-ae (Park Hyo-eun) in class 2 and Kim Soo-min (Choi Soo-in) in class 1, by teacher Miss Kim Ah-tae (Kim See-eun from The Handmaiden, Park Chan-wook, 2016).
Teacher Kim wants the four of them to work on their interview skills so they can apply for a college – any college – and get in. Somewhere. Anywhere. She gives them each a huge directory of colleges and courses. They have a week to decide. But none of them is particularly motivated to do so.
Soo-min, whose parents run one of the restaurants that supplies the school’s meals, foolishly helps secret boyfriend and school president candidate Kim Chan-young (Lee Hyo-je), currently campaigning to improve school meals promises, to shoot a video indicting her parents’ food preparation as substandard, seemingly oblivious to the fact that it might close down their business.
After Seo Hee is reprimanded for carrying a pocketknife on her person, she goes to help In-hye with the zoo, a job which seems to be agreeable to both of them. Seo-hee wants to be an influencer, so they start filming the animals and decorating the hitherto lacklustre school zoo premises. For their efforts, they get awarded the Creative Talent Award by Kim Chan-young at a special ceremony.
Substituting new animals in the zoo, they move the original animals out into their hastily created compound in the nearby woods, christening the place The Gorals after a nomadic, Carpathian tribe one of them has seen in a documentary. It’s not long before the other member of the four person special class join them.
This deceptively simple little film is full of memorable moments – the hapless Jung-ae appearing with a post-it note on her back proclaiming “idiot – LOL” on her back, In-hae boldly wading into a pond to rescue their duck having been told she can be the groups leader if she succeeds, the four girls sitting in class, muddy trainers and jeans beneath their desks.
Towards the end, the narrative ups the ante with a local proclamation of bird flu and the mass slaughter of poultry, with the four in a car trying to bypass quarantine roadblocks to transport their beloved duck to safety. This is preceded by thoroughly appropriate if distressing shots of wheelie bin loads of live poultry being emptied by industrial machines into (off lower picture frame) larger containers.
The whole thing is a great portrait of misfits, those pupils that simply don’t fit in at school – and, by inference, wider South Korean society. The film appears quite modest and almost parochial in its aims – it’s basically about four teenage girls who set up an alternative school zoo in the woods yet, at the same time, it has bigger fish to fry (or animals to rescue), providing something of an indictment against a society where getting a college place is prized above all, and anyone who doesn’t fit that model is written off.
We marvel as the four girls learn a whole roster of skills working on the Gorals completely outside of any proscribed school curriculum, activity or acceptable social model. There’s something deeply and commendably subversive about that.
And without ever becoming sickly sweet, the whole thing has an undeniable charm.
The Gorals plays in LKFF, the London Korean Film Festival 2026which runsin cinemas from Monday, November 2nd to Tuesday, November 16th.
FURTHER PROGRAMME INFORMATION:
Facebook: @theLKFF
Twitter: @koreanfilmfest
Instagram: @london_korean_film_festival
Homepage: https://www.koreanfilm.co.uk/
Trailer (no subtitles):
Trailer (LKFF 2026):