“Snowball”—A bruising coming‑of‑age that tests the limits of friendship in 1990s Korea
Introduction
The first time I watched Snowball, I felt like I was eavesdropping on my own teenage diary—every longing, every bad decision, every late‑night whisper that made a friendship feel like salvation. Have you ever run toward “somewhere else” just to learn you carried the same ache with you? Lee Woo‑jeong’s film lives in those humid, sleepless corners of youth, where love and cruelty take turns wearing the same face. It’s not flashy; it’s the kind of drama that sits beside you and refuses to leave even after the credits. If scenes of bullying, domestic violence, and self‑harm themes are tender spots for you, consider pacing yourself—and remember that help exists, including online therapy and mental health counseling resources. By the end, you might not be able to explain why your chest feels heavier, only that Snowball put into words the things you couldn’t.
Overview
Title: Snowball (최선의 삶)
Year: 2020
Genre: Drama, Coming‑of‑Age
Main Cast: Bang Min‑ah, Shim Dal‑gi, Han Sung‑min
Runtime: 110 minutes
Streaming Platform: Netflix (availability varies by region)
Director: Lee Woo‑jeong
Overall Story
It’s 1993 in Daejeon, the year Expo ’93 stamps a bright future over a city where not every home feels hopeful. Kang‑yi is the quiet observer, soaking up her friends’ moods before she decides her own; So‑young is the self‑possessed beauty with a secret tremor in her voice; Ah‑ram is the collector of strays, of trouble, of anything that looks like freedom. They talk about leaving “somewhere else, somewhere unknown,” the way bored kids breathe on a window and draw maps into the fog. When they finally bolt—no plan, just bus rides, borrowed rooms, and junk food dinners—the night feels generous, like it will keep giving them versions of themselves they like better. But even the first days hint that the girls have packed their old hurts inside their new adventure.
The runaways quickly learn that independence costs more than allowance money. A middle‑aged man buys them dinner, offers a couch, and dangles the prospect of “easy” work; in their bravado, they flirt with danger because adulthood looks like a secret they’re owed. Ah‑ram, who’s always the first to wander, disappears and returns bruised, speaking about violence like it’s weather that passes. “Children, when you’re in love you sometimes get into fights,” she says, a line that lands like a door locking from the outside. The group’s cash thins; tempers fray; even a street mattress they drag into a stairwell can’t soften the exhaustion of improvised living. The freedom they chased suddenly demands choices none of them were ready to make.
Backstories seep in between catnaps and convenience‑store hauls. Kang‑yi’s parents are well‑meaning but distant—her mother devout, her father restrained—while So‑young’s family showers her with gifts but not the permission to fail. Ah‑ram’s father hits; she shrugs at pain the way other teens shrug at homework. These class and family contrasts aren’t just color; they push each girl’s motives in opposite directions. So‑young, insulated by privilege, runs away from boredom; Ah‑ram bolts from danger; Kang‑yi floats between, trying to keep the trio aligned by sheer loyalty. The secret gravity of the story is how those differences pull at the friendship until it creaks.
One sweltering night redraws the map. The three crash on a floor; Kang‑yi pads to the fridge for Baskin‑Robbins; when she returns, So‑young has slipped off her shirt. What begins as playful surrender to heat becomes a moment of tentative desire—two girls hovering between comfort and curiosity. Kang‑yi leans into the silence; So‑young recoils from what it might mean. The morning after, nothing is said, but everything is different: glances last too long, jokes land hard, and the space between them fills with questions. If you’ve ever watched a friendship tremble after a boundary blurs, you’ll feel the tightrope under your feet here.
The escape collapses, not with a bang but with a weary bus ride home. Back at school, the old rules feel harsher, the hallways smaller. So‑young drifts toward the “cool” crowd and, with a mix of self‑preservation and shame, leaves Kang‑yi out in the cold. Ostracism begins as a whisper—sidelong looks, messages not returned—and scales to open mockery and shoves in cramped rooms. Lee Woo‑jeong resists sensationalism, showing how emotional abandonment stings deeper than a bruise. Kang‑yi keeps pretending nothing broke, as if kindness—and a perfect memory of last summer—can rewind a heart.
Ah‑ram tries to help, but she’s slipping too. The father who hits becomes the simplest explanation for why she won’t come to class, why she seems older overnight. Short of money, she takes shifts at a shady bar where men treat the girls’ exhaustion like a coupon. She still collects stray creatures—cats, broken umbrellas, friends who don’t know how to be saved—but can’t rescue herself. Watching her, you feel the film’s quiet fury at a world that asks teenagers to survive systems made by adults. Have you ever wanted to reach through the screen just to say, “You don’t have to carry this alone”?
Kang‑yi keeps chasing the version of So‑young she believes in. She breaks a streetlight outside So‑young’s window so her friend can sleep; she shows up where she isn’t wanted; she clings to inside jokes like they’re life preservers. Each gesture lands flat, sometimes cruelly. A confrontation erupts in an arcade—a flurry of hurt and denial, all neon rage and ringing machines—and Kang‑yi walks out more alone than she thought possible. The heartbreak here isn’t epic; it’s granular, made of a hundred small refusals that teach a teenager how to disappear.
It matters that this story is set in the early 1990s. Daejeon’s Expo glow promised a new Korea, but classrooms still enforced obedience and homes often translated love into control. The girls’ world is patriarchal in the ordinary ways—teachers who lecture instead of listen, parents who punish instead of ask—and the film lingers on how shame can “snowball” into violence. Lee’s camera, often handheld, keeps close to faces; when cruelty happens, it happens partly offscreen, and what we’re left with are the tremors afterward. It’s a choice that makes the characters feel painfully real instead of like case studies.
In the third act, Kang‑yi’s need for repair curdles into something wilder. A self‑destructive act—born of humiliation, love, and a young person’s conviction that feeling everything is the only way to exist—slashes the path forward. The film refuses melodrama; it leaves space for our dread to do the work. Meanwhile, So‑young buries her confusion under cruelty, and Ah‑ram keeps returning to danger because danger is the only place she recognizes herself. The trio’s micro‑universe collapses into three separate orbits that no longer intersect. When Kang‑yi finally asks, “Why did you do this to me?”, the line lands like the echo of a hundred things unsaid.
What remains isn’t neat resolution, but a feeling many of us know: that the people who taught us how to be alive also taught us how to hurt. Snowball’s power comes from its restraint—how it lets a spoon click against teeth in the dead of night, how it watches a family dog whine for affection nobody knows how to give, how it holds a teenager’s face after a door closes. If you grew up before the language of “teen mental health” and “bullying prevention” were common, you may see your younger self more clearly here. And if you’re navigating those storms now, the film is a quiet permission slip to seek support, whether that’s talking to a friend, reaching out for mental health counseling, or exploring online therapy in your own time. Snowball doesn’t fix you; it lets you feel seen.
Highlight Scenes / Unforgettable Moments
The Stairwell Mattress: Early on, the girls heave a discarded mattress into a stairwell and fall asleep in a heap, giddy and exhausted. The image is funny until it isn’t—an emblem of how improvisation masquerades as adulthood. The city becomes their bedroom; light bulbs buzz like lullabies. Waking to an emptied wallet and sore backs, they realize freedom comes with aches no one warned them about. It’s the first time we see their “micro‑universe” forming—and the first hint it’s built on air.
The Baskin‑Robbins Night: Heat presses down like a second skin; Kang‑yi tiptoes for a spoonful of ice cream; So‑young quietly undresses. The moment that follows—wordless, tender, confused—captures the shiver between friendship and desire. Lee films it with such restraint that the clack of a spoon becomes the loudest sound in the room. The scene matters not because it’s scandalous, but because morning turns it into fault lines neither girl knows how to cross. If you’ve ever tried to pretend something didn’t matter when it mattered most, this will sting.
Ah‑ram’s Return: When Ah‑ram reappears with bruises, she explains violence like a love language she’s been taught too well. Her shrug is the saddest thing in the movie: a teenager normalizing harm because the adults around her did first. Later hints suggest a boyfriend turned pimp, and a spiral into exploitative work framed as “helping.” The film never gawks; it bears witness, and somehow that hurts more. It’s a scene that makes you want to punch a wall and write a check to every grassroots shelter you can find.
The Streetlight: Kang‑yi, still believing care can stitch a friendship together, breaks the streetlight outside So‑young’s window so her friend can sleep. It’s romantic, misguided, deeply teenage. The gesture is received as noise, not love, and Kang‑yi has to live with the sound of glass and the weight of being ignored. Few films understand how grand and how invisible adolescent kindness can be at the same time. The scene distills the movie’s ache into one reckless act.
The Arcade Clash: Neon, noise, and rage collide when the girls’ simmering tensions spill into a physical confrontation. Lee keeps the camera close to faces, letting humiliation and fury fight for space across a few square feet. No one “wins;” everyone leaves with something broken you can’t put in a sling. The moment underlines how rejection can bruise deeper than a punch, especially when it comes from the person who used to be your refuge. You can feel the air getting thinner as childhood runs out.
Back to the Hallways: The return to school—whisper networks, sudden silences, looking away when you pass by—captures how bullying often starts invisibly. A karaoke room scuffle, a teacher who notices nothing, and the steady erosion of self make Kang‑yi smaller by the scene. Instead of sensationalizing, the film shows the thousand gentle cuts that teach a kid to disappear. It’s one of the most truthful depictions of ostracism I’ve seen in a Korean youth drama. Watching it, you may remember corridors you still dream about.
Memorable Lines
“Somewhere else, somewhere unknown.” – The mantra they share when dreaming of escape Four words that feel like a ticket and a warning all at once. The line sounds romantic, but in practice it becomes a compass with no north; running doesn’t erase the map inside you. It’s a reminder that “travel” can be an emotion as much as a destination, especially when your starting point is pain. The film uses the phrase to turn fantasy into foreshadowing.
“How can I explain that my warm bed is so comfortable that sometimes I feel scared.” – Kang‑yi, trying to name her restlessness Comfort can feel like a trap when you’re eighteen and afraid your life will be nothing but clean sheets and unspoken rules. This sentence is the film in miniature: tender, honest, a little ashamed. It reveals why the girls leave and why coming home hurts more. You can hear every teenager who has ever wanted to break something just to feel alive.
“Children, when you’re in love you sometimes get into fights.” – Ah‑ram, minimizing abuse she’s been taught to accept The line chills because it’s delivered like an adult’s lesson, not a cry for help. It shows how violence becomes normalized—first in families, then in relationships—until a girl believes pain equals devotion. The film refuses to correct her with a speech; it shows the consequences, quietly and steadily. The silence after this line says more than any argument could.
“Why did you do this to me?” – Kang‑yi, when love and betrayal finally collide It’s not just a question for So‑young; it’s a howl at every adult and every system that failed them. The words surface after a long, painful denial that everything would go back to how it was. In a film that sidesteps big confrontations, this line rings out like a bell. You feel it in your throat for minutes after.
“Life got worse, the more we ran from it.” – Tagline that doubles as the film’s thesis Call it a warning label for impulsive freedom. The story shows how escape without support can compound harm, especially in rigid social ecosystems. It reframes rebellion not as failure, but as a sign that structures—schools, families, communities—need to meet kids where they are. If that resonates, it’s because you’ve learned the same lesson in your own way.
Why It's Special
If you’ve ever looked back on high school and wondered when a friendship stopped being a safe place and started feeling like a storm, Snowball puts that ache on screen with startling clarity. This intimate Korean coming‑of‑age film follows three girls who run away to rewrite their fate, only to discover how messy “freedom” can be. For U.S. viewers, Snowball currently streams free with ads on The Roku Channel, and it’s also available on Netflix in select regions outside the U.S., so it’s easy to press play when that late‑night mood hits.
From its opening minutes, the movie wraps you in textures—hushed buses, cramped bedrooms, the unsaid words between friends. Have you ever felt that way, when silence inside a friendship says more than a long apology? Snowball lingers there, letting small gestures and glances tell the story of girls learning who they are when the bravado of running away gives way to the reality of coming home.
Director Lee Woo‑jeong crafts the film with a patient, almost diary‑like gaze. Scenes are framed as if the camera is peeking in on private memories, with a low‑saturation look that makes the present feel like something already slipping into the past. The effect is tender rather than nostalgic; it invites you to sit with the characters instead of judging them from afar.
The writing avoids melodramatic shortcuts. Instead, Snowball trusts how quickly teenage loyalties turn and how sharp casual cruelty can feel—especially among people who love one another. The script keeps exposition light and lets contradictions breathe, acknowledging that trauma and affection often occupy the same space.
What makes the film sing is its blend of genres. It begins as a runaway road tale, flirts with the suspense of confronting consequences, and lands as an understated character study. It’s neither a glossy teen fantasy nor a bleak message movie; it’s that rare youth drama that understands how a single afternoon can feel like a lifetime.
Emotionally, the movie walks a tightrope between tenderness and dread. You feel the surge of belonging when the trio are together and the chill when that warmth fractures. The score stays minimal, allowing ambient noise—a slammed door, a late‑night phone buzz—to carry weight. Have you ever felt your heart race over a tiny text because of everything it implies?
Above all, Snowball is special for how generously it treats girlhood. It respects the interior lives of its characters, trusting their quiet courage as much as their mistakes. The film refuses to label anyone a villain or a saint; it understands that sometimes the hardest person to forgive is your younger self.
Popularity & Reception
Snowball first stirred conversation at the Busan International Film Festival in October 2020, where its intimate style and fresh female perspective caught curators’ attention. The project’s presence there helped position it as one of the notable indie debuts of its year and contributed to word‑of‑mouth that carried into its theatrical release.
The film’s international profile climbed in August 2021 at the New York Asian Film Festival, where lead actress Bang Min‑ah was honored with the Screen International Rising Star Asia Award—an early sign that global audiences were connecting with her performance. That recognition put Snowball on the radar for U.S. cinephiles who follow festival circuits.
Critics have tended to praise the film’s performances and character work. On Rotten Tomatoes, reviews highlight how Snowball distinguishes itself through careful characterization and a well‑told, familiar story, even when some note the narrative’s elliptical approach. Pieces from outlets like ScreenAnarchy, HanCinema, and In Review Online align on one point: the acting anchors everything.
Among fans, Snowball has grown a quiet but devoted following—the kind that discovers a movie on a niche streamer or festival sidebar and recommends it passionately to friends. Its availability on ad‑supported platforms in the U.S. has further broadened access, giving the film fresh life beyond its initial theatrical window.
Awards and nominations have accumulated around the cast and crew. Bang Min‑ah drew multiple newcomer nods at major Korean ceremonies, and the film’s team received recognition across categories, from directing to supporting performance—evidence that this is a debut with staying power in the Korean industry as well as abroad.
Cast & Fun Facts
When Bang Min‑ah steps into Kang‑yi’s shoes, she sheds pop‑idol sheen for a performance built on micro‑expressions—clenched hands, averted eyes, the soft collapse when a friend’s approval doesn’t arrive. You feel her character’s passive drift, the way she gets swept along by bolder personalities and then must live with choices she barely made. Reviewers often single out how Min‑ah’s restraint invites empathy rather than pity, a choice that keeps Snowball grounded.
Min‑ah’s work here was noticed internationally: at New York Asian Film Festival 2021, she received the Screen International Rising Star Asia Award, an accolade that underlined her transition from beloved Girl’s Day member to serious film actress. It’s the kind of win that signals both promise and craft—and it fits the movie’s own spirit of quietly earning your place.
As Ah‑ram, Shim Dal‑gi is the live wire who jolts scenes awake. She plays the friend who dares others to cross lines and then struggles with what waits on the other side. Dal‑gi’s interpretation is fearless without ever feeling showy; she lets vulnerability leak through tough talk, illuminating how bravado can be both armor and prison. Critics have remarked on the complexity she brings to the role.
Shim Dal‑gi’s turn also earned formal recognition at home, including a Baeksang Arts Awards nomination that placed her alongside some of Korea’s most exciting talents. It’s a nod that acknowledges both her range and Snowball’s ability to draw precise, layered performances from young actors.
Han Sung‑min rounds out the trio as So‑young, delivering the story’s most enigmatic energy. She captures a teen’s unnerving mix of charisma and volatility—the friend you orbit because she makes everything feel urgent. Han resists easy explanations for So‑young’s choices, allowing the character’s contradictions to sit uncomfortably in the frame, which is exactly why the film lingers afterward.
In Han’s hands, small moments—an abrupt exit, a sidelong glance—carry the weight of decisions that can’t be undone. The performance gives Snowball its emotional teeth and helps the movie avoid tidy resolutions. It’s the kind of supporting work that makes you see the protagonist differently each time they share a scene.
Director‑writer Lee Woo‑jeong shapes these performances with the confidence of a seasoned observer of youth. A Busan‑anointed debut, Snowball reflects Lee’s interest in leaving space around traumatic events and focusing instead on the before‑and‑after—the bruised silences, the attempts at normalcy, the brittle laughter. That approach, paired with spare visuals and a watchful camera, explains why the film resonated on the festival circuit.
The film is adapted from Lim Sol‑ah’s acclaimed novel The Best Life, which won the Munhakdongne University Novel Award in 2015. Knowing its literary roots helps you feel why the movie reads like chapters of a diary; whole histories are implied in a sentence, and what’s omitted matters as much as what’s shown.
Conclusion / Warm Reminders
If you’ve ever wondered how a single choice can reroute a friendship, Snowball is the kind of quietly devastating story that stays with you. Finding it is simple—compare the best streaming service options you already use, and if you maintain a Netflix subscription while traveling, check regional availability before you hit play. If you’re on the road, a reputable VPN for streaming that honors each platform’s terms can help you stay connected to your queue. Give this film an evening, and you might recognize your younger self—and forgive her a little.
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