The Way Home on AllMovie

A youngster learns a valuable lesson about family, friendship, and love in this family drama from South Korea. Sang-woo (Yu Seung-ho) is a seven-year-old boy whose parents are divorced, and whose Mother (Dong Hyo-heui) has decided she needs a break from parenthood for the summer. Mother sends Sang-woo to the country to spend some time with his Grandmother (Kim Eul-bun), who is quite old, in poor health, and cannot speak. Sang-woo doesn't much care for his Grandmother, and prefers to spend his time playing with his hand-held video game rather than have anything to do with her. When the batteries die out in his game machine, Sang-woo heads into town to replace them, but before long, he gets lost with no way to find his way back to Grandmother's house. Eventually, two kids (Min Kyung-hun and Yim Eun-kyung) help Sang-woo find Grandmother's home, and he resigns himself to spending the summer with her. As time goes on, the wall between them begins to collapse, and Sang-woo comes to realize how much his Grandmother really means to him. A massive commercial success in its native South Korea, Jibeuro out-grossed Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring during its initial release on its home turf.