South Korean film “The Final Semester” follows a plain teenager boy about to enter what may define the rest of his life. Still not knowing well what he really wants for his life, he simply follows what he is expected to do, and you will probably brace for yourself at times as observing how risky and hazardous his surrounding environment can be.

At first, we get to know how things are not so promising for Chang-woo (Yoo Yi-ha). He will graduate once his final semester at some vocational high school is over, but he is not so sure about what he is going to do next, and the people surrounding him do not help him much on the whole. While his widow mother is mostly busy with supporting Chang-woo and his two younger brothers, his best friend Woo-jae (Yang Ji-woon) does not have much plan either, and he and Chang-woo eventually accept the suggestion from a teacher in their school, who recommends a sort of apprenticeship at a small local company factory.

After visiting that factory, Chang-woo still hesitates, but he cannot possibly say no considering his current status. Although not having been a very good student in the school, he still wants to go to a college, and the company will support his college study once he gets officially employed later. In addition, he may also get exempted from the military service in exchange for working there during next several years.

However, as he and Woo-jae try to start their first days in the factory, we come to see more of how woefully they are unprepared in many aspects. Although they learned a bit of how to handle machines and tools at their school, they are quite inexperienced to say the least, and many of the employees in the factory do not welcome them much from the beginning. In the end, Woo-jae and Chang-woo are stuck with doing one menial job after another, and they become more frustrated as days go by.

 And we become more aware of how their work environment is not so safe here and there. While many of the employees in the factory are well-experienced professionals, they do not often seem to care a lot about the safety of their work environment, and their rather unorganized workplace is often full of the possibility of accidents. Chang-woo and Woo-jae certainly know that they should be careful, but they do not know very much about how they should be careful, and that is why it is often unnerving to see them slogging through another working day full of possible hazards. 

In the end, Woo-jae quits without any hesitation, but Chang-woo keeps working in contrast, and there actually comes some progress for him. Thanks to one generous adult employee, he begins to learn welding bit by bit, and, what do you know, he begins to like working there – especially after receiving a bit of monthly salary as promised to him from the beginning. Furthermore, he also befriends two fellow teenage trainees working there, and his two new friends are willing to support him as much as they can.

However, of course, they are still reminded again of the harsh reality they have to deal with in one way or another. Woo-jae comes to learn later that the company will hire only one of its adolescent trainees, and he also finds himself frequently doing overtime work even though that is not permitted by the labor law at all. He cannot possibly complain about this to his employer, and he and his fellow trainees are not even allowed to be honest about their work environment when they have a private interview with a visiting civil servant at one point.

Thankfully not resorting to unnecessary melodrama, the movie phlegmatically lets us to sense how the system works unfairly against Chang-woo and many others in the factory. They all need to stay employed, and clashing with their employer is definitely the last thing they want. Later in the story, there comes the breaking point of one of Chang-woo’s fellow trainees for an understandable personal, but nothing is changed at all even after that, and Chang-woo and many other employees keep working as usual.

It is often frustrating to observe how passive and indecisive Chang-woo is at times, but Yoo Yi-ha’s earnest lead performance did a subtle job of conveying to us his character’s growing conflict along the story. Even when he does not seem to signify anything at all on the surface, the thoughts and feelings churning behind Chang-woo’s quiet appearance are quite palpable to us, and that is why we come to sense a lot of bitterness from the final scene of the film. Around Yoo, Kim Sung-gook, Kim So-wan, and Yang Ji-woon hold each own place well as the crucial supporting characters in the story, and Yang provides a bit of humor to the story during his several key scenes with Yoo.              

On the whole, “The Final Semester” is a dry but undeniable powerful coming-of-age tale reflecting another unpleasant side of the South Korean society, and director/writer Lee Ran-hee, who previously drew my attention for her debut feature film “A Leave” (2020), demonstrates again her considerable filmmaking talent as advancing further from her previous achievement. I knew what the movie is about in advance, but I found myself much more engaged in the story and characters with more care and worry, and that is what a good movie can do in my inconsequential opinion.