56
Metascore
6 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- Jeon is played to perfection by the director himself. The spare script effectively funnels audience attention into him, who is never less than engaging.
- 75Slant MagazineSlant MagazineIf The Journals of Musan indicates anything, it's that people, for the most part, either can't or simply aren't willing to comprehend the circumstances behind others' actions.
- 60Time OutDavid FearTime OutDavid FearAn attempt to detail the plight of North Koreans in their new homeland, The Journals of Musan doesn't soft-pedal the hardship; Park, however, apparently felt obligated to stack the deck against the film's passive protagonist to a ridiculous degree.
- 50Village VoiceVillage VoiceGroup scenes, meanwhile, often suffer from a peculiar handheld drift, as if in troubling over which insult to add to which injury, the filmmakers neglected to attend to rudimentary blocking.