This very personal, naturalistic Korean film is all about emotional damage, and it's a real heartbreaker.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jun 1, 2015

Drawing out beautifully natural performances from her child actors, Kim once again has a distinct way of letting her camera observe her characters with kind thoughtfulness, allowing for a quiet mood to wash over the scenes.

Full Review | Jul 6, 2010

So Yong eschews drama for a quiet sensitivity which suggests the young can get over almost anything adults put upon them simply with native wit and resource.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Jan 8, 2010

Wonderful performances from the two young leads and a gently heart-breaking narrative arc make this a slow winner.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jan 8, 2010

[The Film] offers a stark analysis of the human potential for random cruelty that recalls nothing less than Bresson's 'Mouchette', albeit with a denouement that holds a glimmer of optimism for the future.

| Jan 8, 2010

A touching, gentle examination of the giddy rush and sickening sense of dislocation that comes with being left on your own when you're young.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jan 8, 2010

Not an easy watch, but worth sticking with.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jan 8, 2010

Like breath on the window of a late-night bus, Treeless Mountain is a work of diaphanous and fugitive beauty.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Jan 8, 2010

A beautiful, meditative and deeply humanistic coming-of-age tale dealing with abandonment, resilience and perseverance in the face of apparent futility.

Full Review | Jan 8, 2010

The writer-director So Yong Kim, drawing on events from her childhood, directs so unobtrusively you may forget the camera is there, but you won't forget its evocation of a child's yearning for a missed parent.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jan 8, 2010

A series of plotless, episodic incidents that slowly build to understated emotional crescendos.

| Nov 12, 2009

Somewhere in between all the emptiness -- the film's laconic chapters are separated by repeated static shots of clouds and sky -- a beautiful little point is made.

| Jul 23, 2009

In modest, lovingly observed ways, the director gives her characters -- and, one hazards, herself -- the gentlest gift of sweet possibility.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Jul 17, 2009

So Yong Kim has a real gift for putting children at ease before the camera, and her two very young actresses (who are not sisters off-screen) reward her with performances of heartbreaking realism.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4 | Jun 26, 2009

Treeless Mountain casts a sad, pellucid spell. It looks at life from three feet off the ground and meets the hardening gaze of its 6-year-old protagonist head on.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Jun 18, 2009

So Yong Kim has made another minimalist masterpiece, a quiet movie of sharply observed details and two girls who will break your heart.

| Original Score: 4/4 | May 15, 2009

In the end, this melancholy, inspiriting movie achieves a breathtaking emotional harmoniousness.

| Original Score: A | May 8, 2009

Kim is deft and sensitive with her tiny co-stars, but Treeless Mountain lacks the freshness and surprise of In Between Days.

| Original Score: 2.5/5 | May 8, 2009

Both lovely and wrenching, So Yong Kim's intimate drama feels so honest, it's often difficult to watch.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Apr 24, 2009

At times, Treeless Mountain almost feels like a fairy tale -- but without the magic.

| Original Score: B+ | Apr 23, 2009