All the young generation in South Korea might concern about their future more than once in their life. Some might concern about their aptitudes, and others might concern about their capability. Some might concern if they could make their dreams come true, while others might concern what to choose in their lives since they don’t have a specific dream. Besides, because their concerns are not free from material conditions, their concerns eventually become a matter of choices between ‘what life they want to live’ and ‘secular success'. It would be nice if you are somewhere in between, however, everyone knows the reality of South Korea doesn’t easily allow it.    

 

It Sun's debut work, «All That We Hope to Be» portrays the agony and wandering of this young generation in South Korea. The viewpoint is somewhat pessimistic and gloomy, but at the same time, it’s also somewhat hopeful and positive. As animal characters such as a cat, a fox, a mouse, a hedgehog, rabbits, and a puppy are personified, the work describes the situations that each character faces and their psychological state, and their stories gradually reveal the meaning episode by episode. Characters’ sharp, cynical and sarcastic dialogues are fresh enough to draw readers’ attention. Direction optimized to cut-to-cut maximizes the sudden transition of scenes to bring out emotional changes from readers. And the black-and-white color makes the dryness of reality revealed more effectively.

 

The characters of «All That We Hope to Be» have a cool-headed and accurate perception for where their position is in society, as well as other people’s positions around them. They continuously concern, calculate and doubt about how much they can fill up the triangle consisting of three elements of wealth-capabilities-dreams, and what they should compromise and pursue as readers do. However, because neither readers nor the characters could be free from material conditions, capabilities and dreams are easily and often questioned and abandoned. In a more personalized modern society, self-achievement of each individual has become an important value, and at the same time, if an individual does not possess enough material, his/her existence –not their survival- will be threatened beyond feeling just miserable in this society. Thus, everyone is now assigned with a task to make both self-realization and material satisfaction compatible and required to “successfully” resolve the task. In this task, those who haven’t been very successful are not exceptions.

   

That's why the characters in «All That We Hope to Be» are constantly feeling anxious. What they give up increases and they understand that they can’t have it all. They discard the rest while focusing on what’s best for them. T-Cup voluntarily wants to be alone, and Nan-bang-ee and Sunny decide to remain friends. C-Lap tries to reach his dream no matter what happens, and Dochee throws away his desire to be happy. Although they’re wanting to keep the least things in their lives (as least as buying just $3 snack), their lives always go round and round. They’re indeed moving forward non-stop, but their dreams look so far away to reach. 

 

Nevertheless, they make a journey on that path, and finally, find their answers at the end of the story - whatever type of answer it is. Then, why do we need such an answer? In modern society, an individual may be just one element of society. An individual is not subjective more than he/she thinks. When we dig into an individual’s life, the meaning of their existence is hardly found rather than an element of ‘labor’ that is responsible for the productive power of the capitalistic economy. Don’t we all try to shake off and get over it? We seek for dreams and meaning to exist as an ‘existent self’ not as an element, so we let others be meaningful to us and try to be meaningful to others. Isn’t it the way we love?

 

The reason why the young generation in South Korea is becoming the generation of abandon is not that they want to run away from the burdened reality, nor the phenomenon is from an expression of selfishness. It is their method of seriously exploring ‘how’ to live ‘what’ kind of life. If they can explore without giving up, it'll be ideal. Unfortunately, the recent reality in South Korea is trash quoted by «All That We Hope to Be». However, as characters from «All That We Hope to Be» do, we will eventually find our answer as well. Any answer is fine. As you give something up for finding out that answer, you will be able to keep another.