General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20265 min read

The First Lap (초행)

The First Lap (초행; revised romanization Chohaeng) is a 2017 South Korean drama film directed by Kim Dae-hwan, his second feature after End of Winter (2014). It follows Ji-young (Kim Sae-byuk) and Su-hyeon (Cho Hyun-chul), a young couple who have lived together for years without marrying and who set out to visit both sets of parents after Ji-young shows signs of a possible pregnancy.¹^•² The film premiered at the Jeonju International Film Festival, won the Best Emerging Director award at the 70th Locarno International Film Festival, and was released theatrically in South Korea on December 7, 2017.²^•³

Key fact	Detail
Director / writers	Kim Dae-hwan (director and screenwriter), screenplay with Jang Woo-jin⁴
Production	Bomnae Films; developed through the Jeonju Cinema Project at the 18th Jeonju International Film Festival²^•⁵
Premiere / release	World premiere April 29, 2017 (Jeonju IFF); South Korean release December 7, 2017³
Cast	Kim Sae-byuk (Ji-young), Cho Hyun-chul (Su-hyeon), Ki Joo-bong, Gil Hae-yeon, Moon Chang-gil, Jo Kyung-sook, Ryu Je-seung⁴^•⁶
Awards	Best Emerging Director, 70th Locarno International Film Festival; Silver Astor for Best Screenplay, 32nd Mar del Plata International Film Festival²
Box office (South Korea)	7,602 admissions on 47 screens, total gross $43,799, per KOFIC data⁷
Rating	Rated 12 and over in South Korea⁸

Spoilers

Plot

Ji-young works on a contract basis at a broadcasting company and Su-hyeon teaches at a private art institute; the two have cohabited for several years while putting off marriage.⁸^•² When Ji-young misses her period, the question of starting a family comes up, and the couple sets out to visit their parents.⁷^•¹

The visits form a pair of road trips. At a housewarming at Ji-young's parents' new home in Incheon, her mother strongly urges the couple to marry, and the family meal ends awkwardly.⁷ Su-hyeon then decides to reunite with the family he has long avoided, and the couple drives to Samcheok on the east coast, where his father's sixtieth-birthday gathering cracks under long-accumulated grievances.⁷^•⁵ The London Korean Film Festival's synopsis describes Ji-young's middle-class parents as frustrated by their daughter's refusal of a conventional family life, and Su-hyeon's relationship with his alcoholic father and embittered mother as even more strained.⁹

The film closes with the couple standing in Gwanghwamun Square amid the candlelight protests, an image the KOFA synopsis reads as suggesting that setting out on an unfamiliar road is not only the couple's situation but everyone's.⁸

Themes

The film uses the question every Korean couple in a long cohabitation faces, "when will you marry?", to talk about the gender roles society demands and the gap between the older and younger generations.⁸ Critics framed it as a portrait of a young generation's growing self-confidence toward traditional family ideals, handled in a naturalistic style without losing its light touch.¹ The Jeonju archive's review notes that Kim's continuing interest is the family, a structure that can be neither embraced nor avoided, and that the couple's conflict and generational difference show no sign of resolution, though the end of the tiring journey hints that family may take on renewed meaning.⁵

Political backdrop. The film was shot in November and December 2016, during the candlelight demonstrations that led to President Park Geun-hye's impeachment, and the crew captured Gwanghwamun rally footage while filming; the footage appears in the film's ending.¹⁰^•¹¹^•⁸ Cine 21 grouped it with Lee Wan-min's 누에치던 방 as post-candlelight Korean cinema, noting that the protest was not an inspiration from the start but entered the film through the camera's chance presence at the rallies.¹¹

Production and style

Kim Dae-hwan, born in 1985, studied film and media design in Seoul; his debut feature End of Winter (2014) won a young-talent prize at the Busan festival.¹ The Jeonju archive also credits him with polishing the dialogue of Parasite (2019).⁵ The First Lap was selected for the Jeonju Cinema Project production support program at the 18th Jeonju International Film Festival.² In a director's note written years later, Kim recalled the minimal production budget as a source of constant anxiety during preparation, and said that making the film led to his own marriage.¹⁰

The Jeonju review highlights Kim's handling of time: every scene is shot in a single long take, yet the film does not foreground the technique, instead letting emotion read through within the flow of real time.⁵ Son Jin-yong served as cinematographer, Kim Dae-hwan as editor, and Mo Seong-min composed the music.⁶

Release and reception

The film premiered on April 29, 2017 at the Jeonju International Film Festival and opened in South Korean theaters on December 7, 2017, distributed by Indieplug.³^•¹² It screened at Locarno, where it won the Best Emerging Director award in the Cineasti del presente competition and received a special mention from the Youth Jury critics, and then took the Silver Astor for Best Screenplay at the 32nd Mar del Plata festival.²^•⁴ It was later shown at festivals including Filmfest Hamburg and the London Korean Film Festival.¹^•⁹

Commercially it was a small release: KOFIC's database records 7,602 total admissions on 47 screens and a gross of $43,799, while Cine 21 lists 6,980 admissions.⁷^•¹² A HanCinema review compared its gentle, quiet manner to Hong Sang-soo's films, without his humor, ending on a positive note.¹³

Notes on the record

Sources differ on two basic details. Runtime is given as 99 minutes by Cine 21 and KOFIC's English database, 100 minutes by KOFA and the Jeonju archive, and 101 minutes by Filmfest Hamburg and the London Korean Film Festival.¹²^•⁸^•¹ The couple's cohabitation is described as six years in English-language synopses and as a seventh-year couple in the KOFA synopsis.⁷^•⁸

References

Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Drama and biographical films (individual works) › Drama films 2015 to 2019 › Drama films 2017 and 2018

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 21, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026

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