The Book of Fish—A black‑and‑white friendship that turns exile into a tide of wonder
Introduction
The first time I watched The Book of Fish, I felt the shoreline in my chest—foam‑tipped, wind‑bitten, and strangely calm, as if the sea itself were teaching me to breathe. Have you ever met someone who made you want to read the world more closely, as if every creature, every rule, every silence had a footnote you’d missed? That’s what this film does: it takes exile and turns it into a classroom without walls, where a scholar learns the tide and a fisherman learns the text. It’s also a reminder that curiosity is not a luxury; it’s a lifeline, the kind that pushes us toward new chapters, new skills, maybe even an online learning platform when life says “start over.” I kept thinking how many of us once dreamed of a marine biology degree or a life near water—how this story invites that dream back without embarrassment. By the final scene, I wasn’t just moved; I was convinced that watching this film is a small act of mending—of seeing, with tenderness, how knowledge makes us more human.
Overview
Title: The Book of Fish (자산어보)
Year: 2021
Genre: Historical drama; black‑and‑white period piece
Main Cast: Sul Kyung‑gu, Byun Yo‑han, Lee Jung‑eun, Min Do‑hee, Jo Woo‑jin
Runtime: 126 minutes
Streaming Platform: Not currently available on Netflix, Hulu, Disney+, Viki, or Kocowa in the U.S. (check back; availability changes).
Director: Lee Joon‑ik
Overall Story
In the first year of King Sunjo’s reign (1801), a scholar named Jeong Yak‑jeon is exiled to the edges of the map for his association with forbidden ideas. The boat that carries him to Heuksan Island looks small against fog‑heaped cliffs, and that scale matters; this place is meant to make a man feel tiny, forgettable. But have you noticed how some people turn punishment into pilgrimage? Jeong steps onto the shore with a gaze that doesn’t cower; he catalogues the wind, the dialect, the fish guts on the boards. When the local official publicly brands him a traitor, the villagers keep their distance, their eyes measuring the cost of kindness. In that hum of suspicion, a young fisherman named Chang‑dae watches and quietly decides he knows exactly what this scholar is—trouble.
Chang‑dae’s world is practical to the bone: tides, nets, taxes, and the long shadow of the civil service exam, the only ladder out of poverty he trusts. He is devoutly Confucian in his hopes, stubborn in his pride, and fiercely loyal to the sea that feeds his neighbors. When Jeong asks him for help to write a compendium of local marine life, Chang‑dae refuses with a clear conscience—why assist a criminal? Have you ever dismissed someone only to find, days later, that their curiosity has started living in your head? That’s what happens here. Jeong keeps watching fish the way other people watch the sky; eventually he offers a trade: I’ll teach you the classics; you teach me the sea.
The exchange begins awkwardly: ink‑smudged characters for Chang‑dae, the thrill of naming for Jeong. The black‑and‑white images turn the island into a moving ink painting—waves sketched with light, cliffs rendered in brushstrokes—and the lessons turn the pair into something harder to label than teacher and student. They study the skate and the ray, the currents that carry them, the instruments that lift them from water to table. Their banter is quick, often funny; their disagreements are small earthquakes about why we learn at all. Is study a ladder to status or a lamp for living? Have you wrestled with that question—degree for career versus knowledge for its own sake?
The village folds into the story: Bok‑rye, Chang‑dae’s childhood friend who keeps her humor sharp; the no‑nonsense widow who translates island life for the scholar; the island consul whose pettiness has a way of knocking over other people’s bowls. We see how poverty forces choices, how taxes bite into a man’s pride, how laughter becomes an act of resistance. When Jeong tastes the boldness of fermented skate, his eyes water and then sparkle, as if the dish itself were an argument for paying attention. Around the fire, Jeong and Chang‑dae sketch the first pages of what will become The Book of Fish; each entry is an act of witness, a promise that knowledge can be born far from capitals and courts.
Politics never stays far. The Sinyu Persecution has stained everything; the state fears ideas it cannot number and punishments it must publicly display. Letters from Jeong’s brother, the renowned Dasan, remind us this is a family that reads toward trouble and compassion at once. Have you ever felt the tug between safety and speaking? Jeong refuses to shrink his mind to fit exile; Chang‑dae refuses to shrink his horizon to fit the island. Their arguments turn tender and then tense as the exam—the gate to government service—glows like a distant lantern in Chang‑dae’s imagination. Meanwhile, Jeong begins to understand that writing about fish is also writing about people—how they endure and what they deserve.
A storm batters the island and with it comes a legend made flesh: a fisherman named Moon Sun‑deuk returns after three years, telling of being blown to Okinawa and then the Philippines before finding his way home. The villagers call it a miracle; Jeong calls it a map, a human archive worth preserving. The film folds this true drift story into its fiction with quiet awe, and Jeong’s notebook swells with detail. He begins to dream of a book that will outlast his exile—not just a zoological ledger but an ethic of looking closely. Have you ever realized that caring about a species or a shoreline changes how you eat, travel, or read sustainable seafood labels? This is the kind of care the story cultivates.
As the book grows, so does the rift. Jeong discovers that Chang‑dae’s study is powered less by love of the text and more by the hope of status; the disappointment is palpable, like a net hauled up empty. Chang‑dae, in turn, bristles at being judged by a man who can afford to disdain advancement. Their friendship fractures, and the pages of fish begin to curl at the edges with salt and grief. When Chang‑dae leaves for the mainland, he carries with him both the scholar’s teachings and the island’s stubborn wisdom. You can feel the ache of that departure if you’ve ever walked away from a teacher to test what you learned in the world.
What he finds inland is a bureaucracy that preaches virtue and practices humiliation. Bribery wears polite clothing; punishments fall hardest on the poor; and the exam culture—so bright from a distance—looks dim around the edges. The film compresses this learning into encounters that turn Chang‑dae’s certainty into questions. He begins to see knowledge not as a ticket but as a responsibility, the kind that reshapes what kind of man, husband, and father he wants to be. Meanwhile, Jeong keeps writing, sicker now, lonelier, but gentler in his gaze, as if kindness were also a form of classification.
On a cliff above the ocean, Jeong stares into the dark and speaks to the wind as if it were an old colleague. It’s not defeat you see on his face but a defiant humility: an acceptance that the book may be less about completing a taxonomy and more about completing a conversation with the place that held him. Have you ever finished a project and realized it had been finishing you all along—rounding your corners, widening your breath? Back in the village, the community—women and men who fed him stories and fish and gossip—keeps him alive with ordinary tenderness. The scholar who arrived branded a traitor has become someone’s neighbor.
Years pass the way island years do, tide after tide, and then one day the shoreline changes: Chang‑dae returns with his wife and child. In the film’s final image, the monochrome quietly blooms into color, a grace note that feels like a benediction—yesterday’s lessons walking into today’s light. Their reunion is simple and enough: two men, once divided by status and purpose, now joined by a book and a life they wrote together. If you’ve ever needed proof that learning can be love in action, this ending offers it, gently and without lecture. And as the camera lingers, you understand that the real test was never an exam; it was whether knowledge could make them braver, kinder, more fully themselves.
Highlight Scenes / Unforgettable Moments
Arrival at “the end of the world”: Jeong’s boat cuts through fog toward Heuksan, the frame stripping color until the island looks ink‑washed and ancient. The landing is humiliating—an official labels him a traitor—but the camera stays on Jeong’s curious eyes, not his shame. That choice tells you who he is: a man who studies even what hurts. The scene also establishes the class and power tensions of the era in a heartbeat. You feel the islanders’ caution, the cold wind of the Sinyu Persecution, and the fierce privacy of small communities that know how to survive.
The bargain of books and boats: In a cramped room, Jeong offers his trade—Confucian texts for fish knowledge—and Chang‑dae counters in dialect, wary but intrigued. They settle into lessons that look like a series of shared risks: mispronounced characters, slippery specimens, laughter they don’t admit is friendship. It’s one of the most quietly romantic portraits of mentorship I’ve seen—two adults deciding to be changed by one another. The montage of study and fishing becomes both plot and prayer. Embedded in it is a question modern viewers know well: what is education for, and who gets to own it?
Village life, salted and sun‑dried: We meet Bok‑rye, the island widow, and the comic consul; we watch fermenting skate spark tears and giggles at the same table. The film treats every face with dignity, reminding us that history is a chorus, not a solo. This is where love sneaks in—between errands, in gossip, in generosity—and where the book gathers its beating heart. If you’ve ever planned eco‑friendly travel that tries to listen before it speaks, these scenes feel like a model for how to arrive in a place. Their warmth deepens the eventual conflicts.
Moon Sun‑deuk’s return: A fisherman, thought dead, stumbles back into the village with an odyssey on his tongue—storms, Okinawa, the Philippines, three years of surviving by wits and mercy. Jeong hears the story not as spectacle but as scholarship, proof that people are archives too. The moment expands the film’s scale from island chronicle to maritime world, showing how currents connect strangers. It also strengthens Jeong’s conviction that a book about fish is a book about humans and their routes of hope. The awe is contagious.
The cliff and the confession: One night, Jeong stands on a precipice, drunk and clear‑eyed at once, and faces the sea. No speechifying—just a man the world tried to reduce, insisting on being curious until the end. Director Lee later called this shot his most memorable; you can see why: it’s humble, unadorned, and magnificent. The scene distills the film’s ethic that black‑and‑white is not lack but choice. It’s also where I felt the movie gripping my own questions about purpose and failure and trying again.
When color returns: In the final coda, Chang‑dae comes home with his family; without fanfare, the image shifts from monochrome to color. It lands like a blessing, tying past to present and study to living. The effect isn’t cute—it’s earned—because we’ve watched both men shed certainties to make room for wisdom. If you were waiting for a sign that knowledge matters beyond exams and reputations, here it is: life, in color, greeting them both. I exhaled and wanted to call a friend to say, “Let’s be this brave about learning.”
Memorable Lines
“If I know my friend deeply, I become deeper myself.” – Jeong, reflecting on what friendship does to a person The line reads like a thesis for the film’s master‑apprentice dance. It reframes mentorship as mutual formation, not charity. Psychologically, it marks Jeong’s shift from solitary scholar to neighbor, admitting that knowledge ripens in relationship. It also foreshadows the ache of their separation, because what deepens us can also hollow us when it leaves.
“If you can’t live as you’ve learned, then live as you are.” – Chang‑dae, testing ideals against reality It’s defiance with a bruise, the voice of a young man who has seen how rules can be used to crush the poor. The sentence cracks open his inner conflict: ambition versus conscience. After his time on the mainland, it reads less like swagger and more like hard‑won mercy. In plot terms, it’s the hinge that turns him back toward the island—and toward becoming the kind of father and husband he wants to be.
“To catch a fish, you must know the fish—rays know the paths of rays, skates the paths of skates.” – Chang‑dae, translating tide into wisdom What sounds like fishing advice is actually a miniature philosophy of empathy and method. It’s how he teaches Jeong to observe first, classify second—a lesson any scientist or student can recognize. Their bond tightens here because the sentence dignifies both traditions: folk knowledge and book learning. If you’ve ever toggled between data and lived experience, you’ll feel the sentence settle into your bones.
“It is fine to live like a crane, but there is meaning too in living like black cloth that doesn’t fear muddy water.” – Jeong, on purity versus usefulness The metaphor lands with moral clarity: learning can stay aloof and spotless, or it can get dirty helping people. It’s Jeong telling himself that exile won’t cancel his vocation, it will concentrate it. For Chang‑dae, it reframes advancement as service rather than escape. The line is a compass for anyone torn between prestige and purpose.
“This isn’t Heuksan; this is Jasan.” – Chang‑dae, renaming the island through friendship and study The pun nods to the title of the book they’re making, and in that wordplay is a claim: the place of punishment has become a place of meaning. Emotionally, it’s a love letter to home, forged not by birth but by attention. It tells us that belonging can be chosen and that names can heal. By the time he says it, you’ll want to stand on a dock somewhere and whisper your own place into newness.
Why It's Special
The Book of Fish opens like a tide rolling in—quiet, silver, and insistent—until you realize it has surrounded you with its tenderness. Set on a remote island where an exiled scholar befriends a young fisherman, it’s a black‑and‑white period piece that feels startlingly present. If you’re in the United States, you can rent or buy it digitally on Apple TV and Amazon, and in some regions it’s also available on Netflix; availability can vary by country, so check your platform of choice before pressing play.
What makes this story special is how it turns mentorship into a living, breathing exchange. The scholar arrives with books; the fisherman arrives with the sea. As their worlds overlap, knowledge becomes a two‑way current rather than a lecture. Director Lee Joon‑ik’s choice of monochrome invites you to lean in, to feel the salt air and hear the creak of boats as if you were there beside them.
Have you ever felt this way—standing at the edge of a new friendship, unsure if you’re the teacher or the student? The Book of Fish lingers in that question. It’s a human‑sized epic about curiosity, pride, and the surprising humility it takes to truly listen. The film asks us to consider how we change when we let someone else’s world touch our own.
Much of the joy comes from how gently the film balances humor and gravity. One moment you’re laughing at a wry line on the shore; the next, you’re aware of history’s pressure from the mainland. That balance is what gives the movie its warmth: it’s not just about survival, but about finding lightness even when the tide is rough.
Genre labels barely contain it. It is at once a historical drama, a coming‑of‑age tale, a buddy movie, and a philosophical conversation written in foam on the water. The monochrome cinematography refuses mere nostalgia; it’s purposeful, sculpting faces, fog, and waves into something that feels like living brushwork. A U.S. critic even called it a “lush monochrome” that bathes the drama in romantic memory, which captures the movie’s visual spell.
Underneath the beauty lies a quietly radical thesis: knowledge should serve ordinary people. The real Jeong Yak‑jeon compiled a sea‑life encyclopedia to help coastal communities understand the world that fed them. The film turns that act into drama—two men cataloging fish but also cataloging the ways they can be better for one another.
And yet, for all its ideas, The Book of Fish is deeply felt. You don’t need to know Korean history to recognize the ache of exile or the thrill of finding a true collaborator. The sea becomes a mirror: sometimes calm, sometimes stormy, always revealing something about the souls who study it.
Popularity & Reception
When The Book of Fish premiered in South Korea on March 31, 2021, critics praised its patient storytelling and the way its black‑and‑white images evoke ink‑wash paintings, a style that suits its era and subject. That early reception set the tone: this wasn’t just a handsome period film, but a heartfelt one.
Awards soon followed. At the 57th Baeksang Arts Awards, the film received the Grand Prize (Daesang)—the ceremony’s highest honor—cementing its place as one of the year’s defining works. Few movies about scholarship and fish could feel so big; this one did, because it treated learning as a form of love.
The Blue Dragon Film Awards, South Korea’s major industry honors, recognized the film’s craftsmanship too. Sul Kyung-gu won Best Actor for his soulful turn as Jeong Yak‑jeon, while the film was celebrated across multiple categories including screenplay and cinematography—a testament to how fully its parts cohere.
Beyond trophies, international festivals and specialty showcases brought the film to global audiences, from London Korean Film Festival screenings to North American arthouse circuits. Viewers outside Korea discovered a drama whose island intimacy travels surprisingly well, proof that specificity can be universal when rendered with care.
In the U.S., the small but enthusiastic critical footprint highlights what fans talk about most: a moving “buddy‑movie arc” wrapped in luminous monochrome. As word of mouth grows through streaming platforms and rentals, The Book of Fish keeps finding new viewers who come for the period setting and stay for the tenderness.
Cast & Fun Facts
There’s a quiet grandeur to Sul Kyung-gu’s performance as Jeong Yak‑jeon. He doesn’t play the scholar as an untouchable sage; he lets you see the embarrassment of banishment, the curiosity that won’t quit, and the wary pride of a man relearning how to be useful. That subtlety is part of why his peers honored him with Best Actor at the 42nd Blue Dragon Film Awards—it’s the kind of turn that deepens with each scene.
For longtime followers of his career, it was also a milestone: a rare historical role for an actor often associated with contemporary dramas. Interviews around release emphasized how he approached the character from the inside out rather than mimicking scholarship, which you can feel in the way he listens—to the sea, to his student, to himself.
As Chang‑dae, Byun Yo-han radiates restless intelligence. He starts as a young fisherman who adores Confucian learning and ends as a man who understands its limits—and its possibilities—when it meets real life. His arc is the film’s heartbeat, and Korean critics took notice, with the Busan Film Critics Association naming him Best Actor for the role.
Byun’s preparation went far beyond lines on a page. He trained in regional dialect, swam, and handled the messy realities of marine life to ground the character; in his own words, black‑and‑white demanded a truer gaze and voice, because there’s nowhere to hide. That commitment gives Chang‑dae’s transformation its credibility—you believe he’s earned every insight.
You may recognize Lee Jung-eun from global hits, and here she brings earthy wisdom and comic timing to the island community. Her presence anchors the film’s bustling shore life, reminding us that scholarship means little if it floats above the people it’s meant to serve.
Lee’s career spans theater, television, and film, with a reputation for characters who seem ordinary until they surprise you with depth. In The Book of Fish, she does exactly that: a few scenes, a handful of glances, and suddenly the island feels like a home filled with history.
Even in a brief appearance, Jo Woo-jin leaves a mark as Byeol Jang, a figure from the bureaucracy whose presence ripples through the island’s fragile balance. He’s one of those actors who can step in for minutes and shift the room’s gravity, sharpening the film’s sense of the mainland’s reach.
Jo’s versatility—stretching from thrillers to political dramas—shows in how he calibrates authority without showiness. Listed as a cameo in his filmography, his turn here is a reminder that stakes aren’t just personal; policy and power are always just offshore.
A note on the creative helm: Director Lee Joon‑ik, working from a script by Kim Se‑gyeom, uses black‑and‑white not as a gimmick but as a time machine, arguing that monochrome is a kind of cinematic “fantasy” that clarifies intention. It’s his second modern black‑and‑white period film after Dongju, and the approach helped earn the film the Baeksang Grand Prize—recognition that vision and writing have come together to say something lasting.
Conclusion / Warm Reminders
If you’re craving a film that restores your faith in conversation—in the patient work of learning and being changed—The Book of Fish is a quiet marvel. Stream or rent it where you are, dim the lights, and let the sea carry you. And if region locks ever get in your way, many viewers use a best VPN for streaming to access their libraries while watching on a 4K TV and reliable home internet plans, turning a living room into a lighthouse of its own. Have you ever felt a movie make you breathe a little easier? This one just might.
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