Dance Town tells the affecting story of a North Korean couple; Jung Man-il and his wife Jung-nim,
whose love of the South has them planning to defect. Prior to their departure, Man-il is reported to the
authorities by their neighbours for possessing foreign
contraband but he manages to tip off Jung-nim, who
is forced to flee alone. Arriving in what seems to be
a safe haven in South Korea, she is welcomed by the
authorities and quickly assigned an apartment and a
menial job. But Jung-nim remains ill at ease in her
new life with the stigma of being from the North and
the isolation it brings. Most of all, she misses her husband and the life they shared together, and falls into a
downward spiral of despair.

Ra Mi-ran is outstanding as Jung-nim, with her fragile and resilient turns, but director Jeon Kyu-hwan’s
razor-sharp observations pitch the film somewhere
between John Cassavetes and Ken Loach on the
scale of cinematic social criticism, and point him out
as a most welcome talent. Dance Town is a perfect
ending to the Town trilogy with each film centring on
different forms of social isolation and exclusion. This
is mainly due to the incredible performance from the
central actress Ra Mi-ran.