House of Hummingbird (2018) poster
2018 · drama

House of Hummingbird

Directed by Kim Bora2h 15m2018
ElsewhereIMDb7.44kRT98%Metacritic82TMDB7.5116
  • sombre
  • slow-burn
  • intimate
Movie DNA

Sombre, slow-burn, gentle drama, grounded in texture. Ambivalent, intimate, measured, hand-scored across twelve axes of taste.

How every film is hand-scored →

14-year-old Eun-hee moves through life like a hummingbird searching for a taste of sweetness wherever she may find it. Ignored by her parents and abused by her brother, she finds her escape by roaming the neighborhood with her best friend, going on adventures, and exploring young love.

Our read · House of Hummingbird (2018) reads as a sombre, slow-burn, grounded drama entry — gentle in intensity, intimate in scope, measured in temperature, ambivalent in outlook, with a strong directorial signature. Hand-scored on twelve axes of taste — mood, pacing, weirdness, hope, stakes, humour, reality, density, warmth, auteur, intensity, and era — with a derived palette drawn from its dominant cinematography.

Cast
Park Ji-huKim Sae-byukSeol Hye-inJung In-giLee Seung-yeon
Where the cast leads
In Front of Your Face (2021) poster
In Front of Your Face
2021
Kim Sae-byuk thread
Kim Sae-byuk
same tone
The World of Us (2016) poster
The World of Us
2016
Seol Hye-in thread
Seol Hye-in
same tone
The Woman Who Ran (2020) poster
The Woman Who Ran
2020
Kim Sae-byuk thread
Kim Sae-byuk
same tone
Grass (2018) poster
Grass
2018
Kim Sae-byuk thread
Kim Sae-byuk
near DNA
Kim Sae-byuk
actor path
In Front of Your Facesame toneThe Woman Who Ransame toneGrassnear DNA
Seol Hye-in
actor path
The World of Ussame tone
Jung In-gi
actor path
Samaritan Girlnear DNAThe Chaseradjacent
Fingerprint

The shape of House of Hummingbird

Tonight, this looks like

What watching it is actually like.

“You want a subtle Korean coming-of-age story of a 14-year-old girl finding sweetness amid family pain.”

ends bittersweetit stays with youmeditativegrips by minute 20attention 4/5earns its lengthsubtitles: full
Date nightWith friendsSoloWith parentsKids around
Heads-upchild peril

Skip it tonight — You want plot-driven story or upbeat teen drama without quiet melancholy.

If House of Hummingbird is your film
Yi Yi (2000)
quiet family drama and young people finding their way
(prefer faster pace)
The Farewell (2019)
family secrets and quiet emotional growth
After Yang (2021)
gentle exploration of family connection and memory
(want more dramatic stakes)
DNA · twelve axes

The reading.

Each axis is hand-scored — not derived from votes or genre averages. The marker shows where this film sits; the gradient fill uses the film's own cinematography palette.

Mood · HeavyCosy
Pacing · Slow-burnKinetic
Intensity · GentleExtreme
Weirdness · ConventionalSurreal
Hope · NihilisticRedemptive
Stakes · IntimateEpic
Humour · NoneBroad
Reality · GroundedFantastical
Density · SparseTwisty
Warmth · ColdTender
Auteur · TransparentSignature
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Closeness in the twelve-axis space — how the film actually reads, not “people also liked.”

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In Front of Your Face
2021 · very close match
In the Aisles (2018) poster
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2018 · close match
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2017 · close match
Your take
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