South Korean independent film “Red Nails” calmly but sensitively observes the strained mother and daughter relationship between its two deeply flawed human characters. Although we do not like these two people much even at the end of the story, the movie lets us have some understanding on their problematic relationship at least, and we come to sense a little bit of hope and optimism even though nothing is bright or certain for either of them.

At the beginning of the story, we meet Hong-i (Jang Sun), a woman in late 30s who is going to take her senile mother Seo-hee (Byun Joong-hee) from a nursing home to her little residence in Seoul. On the surface, Hong-i seems to care a lot about her mother’s welfare, but it soon turns out that she has a very selfish motive behind her back. Because she has been struggling to pay off a substantial amount of loan debt, Hong-i really needs the money belonging to her mother, and we subsequently see her using some of her mother’s money for paying off a bit of her loan debt not long after her mother begins to stay at her residence.

In case of Seo-hee, she seems to appreciate her daughter’s phony generosity, but it does not take much for us to sense how much she and her daughter have been estranged from each other for years. Although she occasionally shows some care and attention toward her daughter, this only annoys her daughter instead, and Hong-i has no problem at all with having her mother be taken care of by an old friend of her mother whenever she is busy with her work outside.

As the movie patiently observes the growing strain between its two main characters, we come to see more of how messy and pathetic Hong-i’s daily really is. Besides working at some construction site, she also works at a little private academy for old ladies around her mother’s age, and, despite her sincere efforts, she often stumbles in case of handling her old students, as shown from one brief scene between her and one of them. In addition, she has been in a rather unhealthy relationship with some dude, but she still does not consider breaking up with him for a self-serving reason, even though she is about to have a date with some other guy who seems much nicer in comparison.

And we also come to see more of how insensitive and unpleasant Seo-hee can be at times. While she certainly needs a lot of care and attention due to her worsening medical condition, Seo-hee is not a nice old lady at all, and this aspect of hers becomes all the more evident when she suddenly feels like being insulted for her illness at one point later in the story.

As the mood becomes more distant between her and her daughter along the story, we come to sense more of the remaining pain and resentment between them. We are not so surprised when Hong-i finally reaches to her breaking point, and we also come to wonder more about the past between Hong-i and her mother, but the screenplay by director/writer Hwang Seul-gi, who incidentally made a feature film debut here, does not try to explain too much as simply focusing more on the personality and humanity of its two unlikable but engaging main characters. We continue to wince as observing more of their respective human flaws, but their gradual conflict along the story holds our attention to the end, and we become all the more interested and engaged in their bumpy psychological drama.

It surely helps that the movie is steadily supported by how effortlessly its two lead actresses complement each other throughout its rather short running time (86 minutes). Jang Sun, who was terrific as the hard-working mother of the young heroine of Lee Ji-eun’s impressive debut feature film “The Hill of the Secrets” (2022), looks quite different here in a very passive and subdued appearance, and she is utterly uncompromising as making no excuse on her character’s many unpleasant sides. Yes, Hong-i is often quite unwise and foolish to say the least, but Jang’s nuanced low-key performance lets us have some understanding on Hong-i’s pathetic behaviors, even though we often observe her from the distance. On the opposite, Byun Joong-hee, a 75-year-old actress who has appeared in a number of notable films such as “Star of Ulsan” (2024) during last several years since she started her acting career in 2014, holds her own place well besides her co-star, and she is particularly good when Seo-hee makes a silent but firm decision for her as well as her daughter around the end of the story.

It must be pointed out that the movie shares several common things with Kim Se-in’s stunning debut feature film “The Apartment with Two Women” (2021), which also examines one very troubling mother and daughter relationship in addition to having Lee Yoo-Kyeong as one of the crucial supporting characters in the story. In my inconsequential opinion, “The Apartment with Two Women” is relatively more compelling because of being equipped more energy and edginess, but “Red Nails” is still a fairly solid drama film to be appreciated for its sensitive thoughtful handling of story and characters, and its good moments are already growing on me as I write more and more about it here in this review.

On the whole, “Red Nails” is a modest but interesting character drama, and Hwang, who previously worked in Yoon Ga-eun’s unforgettable first feature film “The World of Us” (2016), demonstrates here that she is another new South Korean filmmaker to watch. In short, this is another notable debut feature film of this year in South Korean cinema, and it will surely be interesting to see whether Hwang will advance more like many of other rising new South Korean filmmakers during last 10 years.