Writer-director Jerome Yoo delivers a quiet powerhouse with Mongrels, a Canadian immigrant drama that swaps sweeping statements for soulful, lived-in moments. It’s the story of a widower, Sonny Lee (Jae-Hyun Kim), and his children—teenage Hajoon (Ho-Young Jeon) and young Hana (Sein Jin)—who have recently emigrated to rural Canada in the 1990s. Sonny takes a job capturing feral dogs that have become a menace to the local farming community. He quickly earns the reputation of being an adept mongrel hunter, drawing the attention of Scott Larson (Morgan Derera), a local man who offers a lucrative bounty if he can capture the pack’s Alpha dog. Meanwhile, Hana continues to believe that her mother might return if she completes her mother’s special wish by catching a hundred airplanes from the sky.
Hajoon struggles to understand his place in this new world and within his family. His father pressures him to be strong and participate in the hunts, but the violence repulses Hajoon. He quickly becomes friends with Scott’s son, Noah (Jedd Sharp), and his friends, while getting into the silly mischief typical of Canadian teens in the 90s. When he fails to kill a trapped animal, Hajoon’s shame deepens the tension with his father. At the same time, he begins to push back on all the rules and restrictions Sonny has placed on him.
Hana’s perspective offers a childlike yet emotionally resonant view of the family’s upheaval. Taken under the wing of Scott’s religious wife, Laura (Candyce Weir), she begins attending church and participating in Sunday School, where she finds a surrogate sense of family and belonging. Laura becomes a maternal figure to her, though she may cross a line when she offers to dye Hana’s hair blond. Hana clings to the idea that fulfilling her goal of catching one last airplane will bring her mother back, a belief that fuels her quiet determination as the family navigates their fragile existence in this unfamiliar land.
“Hana clings to the idea that fulfilling her goal of catching one last airplane will bring her mother back…”
Mongrels is a touching tale of an immigrant family broken by the loss of its matriarch. Writer/director Yoo tackles the story of grief from the husband, who lost everything, including himself, the son who, in a sense, lost both parents, and a young daughter who is trying to grasp the idea that her mother is not coming back.
Yoo tells the story of an immigrant in a way that feels unique to any newcomer in a strange land. Sonny is naturally cautious about the Larsen family. He will always see himself as an outsider, but he needs Scott to give him a job. Any kindness from the Larsens is, in turn, met with suspicion.
In his first feature, Yoo has a knack for contrasting the cold and the beautiful. The film makes this little farming community feel so idyllic, I’d love to live there. Mongrels is a beautifully shot film, which makes the ending so satisfying.
Mongrels earns its emotional punch not through melodrama, but in the quiet spaces between grief, identity, and resilience. Yoo’s debut is a triumph—tender, honest, and beautifully shot—a reminder that you can’t go through grief alone.
For screening information, visit the Mongrels official website.
"…You can't go through grief alone."
