The high-school experience is presented as an unforgiving purgatory of relentless suffering in director Han Chang-lok's debutfeature, Funky Freaky Freaks, which premieres in competition at the 3 Oth Busan International Film Festival. Following a triumvirate of underachieving misfits as their life-long friendship is challenged by the arrival of a new student, Han's film pulsates with an unchecked adolescentfury, as every defeats and daily heartbreaks burns with a raw intensity that is only amplified by the inexperience of youth.Ji-sook (Baek Ji-hye), Yong-gi (Joo Min-hyeong), and Dum-bo (Shin Jun-hang) have been inseparable since they were kids, always looking out for one another, and now each other's only friends.

After enduring an abusive childhood at the hands of her violent father, Ji-sook struggles with anorexia, forever chasing a dangerously low body weight in orderto appease a faceless community of online followers. From its opening frame, Funky Freaky Freaks reverberates with a frenzied punk rock intensity that echoes the early V-Cinema offerings of eighties​ Japanese auteurs like Miike Takashi, Tsukamoto Shinya, and Ishii Sogo, with its fast-moving handheld camera, warped fisheye lenses and psychedelic visual interference.

Intercut with footage of larvae and foraging insects, our protagonists are introduced as unpleasant and insignificant, perhaps, but still naive and not yet fully-formed. As the drama unfolds, the petty deals and sneaky hustles that fill the trio with confidence and swagger will soon dissipate when they must face off against an adversary from another class entirely.

Not only is Woo-joo an accomplished martial artist, but he comes from wealth and status - a far cry from the shattered homes that raised these small-time miscreants. Nevertheless, Han displays great affection for his characters, despite their failings and the fates he metes out upon them. In each other's company they find a modicum of value and self-worth, forging a surrogate family together that protects them against the bullies and abusers. Only when they stray from this group, whether into the arms of a would-be lover like Woo-joo, or the anonymous cesspool found online, do they encounter real danger. In Han's universe, the internet is seductive, cruel and inherently dangerous, luring its victims in with empty promises of popularity, fame, and wealth, only to decry them as ugly, overweight, and worthless. Anyone who dares interact with the faceless mass of provocative netizens, finds only abuse, violence, and incitations to commit self-harm.

Han's is an unrelentingly downbeat and pessimistic worldview, and there isn'ta great deal of nuance in his observations. That said, it is difficult to argue against his portrayal of the teenage experience, even if he stubbornly refuses to show anything but its very worst moments. His young cast are as sympathetic and infuriating as the characters they play, with Joo Min-hyeong's tragically misguided hero a particular standout. Assuming that with Funky Freaky Freaks, Han has now exorcised any lingering adolescent grievances, wherever he chooses to venture next, expectant audiences will undoubtedly follow.​​