Vanishing Time: A Boy Who Returned

Su-rin, a thirteen-year-old girl, moves to a remote island with her stepfather after her mother's death. She struggles to fit in at school but befriends Sung-min, a boy who understands her. When Su-rin joins him and his friends on a trip into the mountains to watch blasting at a mine, the group discovers a strange cave in the forest. Local legend holds that a cave appears under a full moon and that anyone who breaks the egg inside will have time devoured by a monster. The children take the glowing egg out of curiosity, and Su-rin is the only one who finds her way back to the village. Days later, a man in his thirties approaches her and claims to be Sung-min, one of the friends who vanished.

Um Tae-hwa directed and co-wrote the film with Jo Seul-yeah, with Kwak Sin-ae producing. It is the first of the director's three features, followed by Concrete Utopia in 2023 and Love wins all in 2024. Gang Dong-won plays the adult Sung-min opposite Shin Eun-soo as Su-rin, with Lee Hyo-je as the young Sung-min; Kim Hee-won, Kwon Hae-hyo and Kim Dan-yul round out the cast. Released in 2016, the Korean production took in about 4 million US dollars worldwide.

Audience response has been consistently positive. On IMDb it holds 7.2 out of 10 from roughly 2,600 votes, and on TMDB it also stands at 7.2 out of 10, though from a much smaller base of about 189 ratings. The agreement between the two audiences suggests the film has found a steady following rather than a broad one.