House of Hummingbird
“Critics from Western countries often ask why Bora Kim depicts bisexuality in House of Hummingbird.”
Title: House of Hummingbird (2020) / Korean: 벌새
Director: Bora Kim 👩🏻🇰🇷
Writer: Bora Kim 👩🏻🇰🇷
Reviewed by Elaine 👩🏻🇺🇸
Technical: 5/5
Director Bora Kim’s sensitive debut depicts the story of Eunhee (Ji-Hu Park), a 14-year-old student living in Seoul, South Korea. Although House of Hummingbird is told solely from Eunhee’s point of view, Kim handles all characters with warmth to paint a tender portrayal of a South Korean family.
Set in 1994, Hummingbird thankfully eschews the usual nostalgia that accompanies similar period fare. Instead, the setting serves as a reflection of Kim’s own experiences growing up during a turbulent time and place. Not unlike Eunhee herself, South Korea in the ‘90s raced to develop quickly to catch up to the rest of the world, sometimes at its own expense, as a tragic historic event proves later in the film.
Beyond the glimpse of contemporaneous props like pagers, beyond location shooting like in the existing Eunma apartments, the quality of ‘90s South Korea comes to life in Hummingbird through the details. Cinematographer Kook-Hyun Kang’s softened visual tones explore the South Korea of Kim’s memories, while highly effective sound design enfolds audiences into its textured universe. We hear the patter of distant helicopters or the rustle of summer trees at night while insects chorus. And no matter how far from the camera lens the characters sit, Hummingbird intimates their conversations to us, as if we’re also sitting with them.
This expansiveness contrasts beautifully with Kim’s focused camerawork, which hones in on Eunhee’s specific perspective: a handheld view trembles slightly to reflect her uncertainties; a slow-motion grab follows a starry-eyed walk after a first kiss. Through these techniques, viewers personify Eunhee’s adolescent frustrations, giving us relatable touchpoints in an otherwise individualistic story. Kim captures all of these brimming emotions with poise and never rushes Eunhee through a moment.
This loving attention to detail could have simply created atmosphere. But because Hummingbird avoids seismic events to define Eunhee, sound and visuals do double duty to reveal the film’s true storyline, of a young woman struggling to grow up in an unvarnished, sometimes violent world. Her loneliness as an unseen third child pervades her existence, moving her to seek any sort of love or attention from others, whether in delicate school crushes or a meaningful relationship with her cram school teacher Youngji (Sae-byeok Kim). When rare small kindnesses impact our protagonist so profoundly, like ripples in water, the cinematography must be patient enough to capture such undercurrents.
Hummingbird reminds me most of Edward Yang’s seminal Yi Yi (2000), another domestic drama that exudes humanism and isolated characters. As Yang alludes to the hidden parts of people, so too does Kim. Yi Yi fixates on the backs of heads, while Eunhee ever seems to be looking at people from behind. In fact, the first time we meet several key characters in Hummingbird like Youngji, we’re introduced to their backs as if to reiterate how little we understand of other people’s inner worlds.
Through all these devices, Kim brings us into her heartfelt memories—made possible by her skillful eye for life’s intimate moments.
Gender: 5/5
Does it pass the Bechdel Test? YES
Written and directed by a woman, Hummingbird addresses a society built on patriarchal values. Eunhee’s mother (Seung-Yun Lee) struggles with the sacrifices she has made due to the conventional favoritization of sons. Her parents had pushed her to give up on the idea of going to a university so that her brother could attend school, and in a telling scene, she wistfully imagines walking around campus with books held to her chest. However, Eunhee’s mother still fails to understand how she carries on those same injustices with her own children. When Eunhee complains to her mother that her brother beats her, her mother turns a blind eye and mildly admonishes them not to fight with each other.
Eunhee’s older sister (Soo-yeon Park) also has her flaws. The first scenes of the film paint her as a truant delinquent, yet we glimpse her dimensionality through long looks into the mirror or a muted expression of commiseration at Eunhee, when her younger sister tries to tell their mother that their brother is physically abusive.
Above all, the relationships in Hummingbird exemplify the startling vulnerability of all those involved. A friendship with Eunhee’s teacher Youngji develops organically as we draw connections between them, even down to how they both write with their left hands. But rather than rely on the clichéd trope of the mentor who sees herself in the younger girl, Hummingbird hints at Youngji’s own unique past and quirks.
Equally complex is Eunhee’s friendship with Jisuk (Seo-Yoon Park). Although they attend the same cram school, their gap in social class comes to the fore when Jisuk happily shares that her mother buys her designer clothes when she does well in class. But when an ill-conceived shoplifting lark goes awry, Jisuk snitches on Eunhee to avoid punishment. Understandably, Eunhee internalizes this as a deep betrayal, yet Kim simultaneously allows us to sympathize with Jisuk: In an earlier scene, Jisuk wears a face mask to cram school in order to hide bruises caused by her brother. This suggests an entrenched fear of male violence and authority—including potential reprisal from the shop owner, who had caught the girls red-handed. Jisuk, like all the other women in the film, has her imperfections and can be easy to dislike, but importantly, she’s difficult to truly parse. Kim layers their characterizations like she layers her film, without judgment and without forcing any message.
This lack of condemnation even extends to the abusive men of Hummingbird. Despite the societal advantages of Eunhee’s father and brother, their humanity arrives in the form of voyeuristic snapshots. Eunhee walks in on her father (In-gi Jeong) dancing alone to sentimental music in the living room, a scene that may not excuse his propensity for slammed chopsticks or brash profanity at the dinner table where he lashes out as his family, but that may be explained by his sense of impotence at work that translates into his home life. Even Eunhee’s older brother (Sang-yeon Son) avoids easy dismissal. When Eunhee’s sister has a brush with death, narrowly avoiding being at the scene of the 1994 Seongsu Bridge collapse, which took 32 lives and united the nation in sorrow, her brother explodes into tears at the dinner table. Viewers can safely assume his outsized reaction betrays his own sense of guilt in how he’d abused his sister, whose mortality suddenly seems all too real. It opens our eyes to how the patriarchal system victimizes men too, piling undue pressure upon them to perpetuate misogynistic traditions that hurt all those involved.
Race: 5/5
Kim’s personal story never tries to be anything more than acutely South Korean. While anyone may relate to Eunhee’s adolescent foibles, Hummingbird cites specific references that give the film its concrete weight.
Much of the film takes place inside Eunhee’s family home in the aforementioned Eunma apartments of the affluent Daechi-dong area, long known as the “largest mecca for private institutes in Seoul”. And as mentioned, the linchpin of the movie surrounds the historical Seongsu Bridge collapse, one of South Korea’s most ignominious disasters which persists in the public consciousness even today.
Kim also employs the South Korean love language of food. (Mukbang videos, where vloggers eat copious amounts of food onscreen as a way to connect with strangers? South Korean to the core.) Regardless of what conflicts arise within Eunhee’s family, they always come together at the dining table. After a bit of luck keeps Eunhee’s sister away from the Seongsu Bridge collapse, the father merely says at dinner, “That’s fortunate. Let’s eat.” Likewise, Eunhee’s mother expresses affection mainly by feeding her children, actualizing the common Korean sentiment that a mother gets full from watching her children eat. Even Eunhee brings rice cakes to Youngji as a thank you for listening to her troubles and treating her as an equal.
However, no matter what language we speak or how we may communicate our love, the film’s central conflict of Eunhee’s alienation in this world can be easily construed for any viewer. The film never shies away from its South Korean perspective yet manages to connect with audiences everywhere, through its themes of how we search for and accept love.
Bonus for LGBTQ: +0.50
Kim says that critics from Western countries often ask why she depicts bisexuality in the film. Her answer: “There is no reason.”
However, some cultural context might shed some light. In my case, as a Korean American who experienced similar friendships to the ones Eunhee shares in Hummingbird, the idea of girls crushing on and idolizing each other seems utterly normal. Eunhee never questions her sexuality in the context of a conservative Korea because she simply craves love and affection outside of herself. Hummingbird lets her be attracted to whomever she feels drawn to, rather than needing to label her as bisexual or lesbian. More than anything, she loves being touched, paid attention to, taken care of. She basks in the adoration of another girl, practically glows when the older women at the hospital praise her, and leans into the hairstroke of a boy. Why define the level of her attraction to the same or opposite sex?
While some may be convinced that Eunhee experiences a sexual awakening and others may argue her outpourings of love are platonic, the answer probably lies somewhere in the middle. Hummingbird invites flexible and varying interpretations.
Mediaversity Grade: A+ 5.17/5
Kim exudes a confidence far beyond that of a first-time feature. While House of Hummingbird starts with an enigmatic view of Eunhee’s sloped back, it closes with an extended shot of her face as she observes the world around her. We don’t need to hear her thoughts or see exactly what she’s looking at, but we can sense how much she’s grown throughout the course of Kim’s soft and empathetic film. Its generosity of spirit nudges us to look without judgment at the people around us, reminding us that we all inhabit lives so much larger than what can initially be perceived, so that we walk away from the film’s ending with expanded hearts.
Like House of Hummingbird? Try these other sensitive coming-of-age stories.
The Half of It (2020)
Eighth Grade (2018)
Miss Juneteenth (2020)