Caution: The review below contains sensitive topics not suited for adolescents and teenagers

A queer life on the road is often far from a fantasy. More often, it’s an elegy instead. Going My Home (2019) silently lays a wreath on the queer cemetery– full of gay men sleeping forever.

Does a queer person have a home? It can be interpreted as a set of questions, too, beginning with questions as such. But above all, it is an elegy– touching upon all the undoings of a queer life throughout its 27 minutes long runtime.

It is directed by Shin Jong Hun, a filmmaker who has a number of queer short films to his credit.

Cinematography and Color palette

‘We gays are people of culture’, often the gay people say. It is too evident at times. South Korea’s small, and often relatively underfunded queer media scene too stands as a proof.

There are many things that start happening once a queer person takes up a pen or a camera. In this case, the short film turned into a poetry of colour palettes. Almost like the maker of the frames was trying to create moments of quasi-paintings with photography.

Going My Home starts off with overly whitish frames, creating landscapes of emptiness one after another. They portray the inner emotions of the protagonist, Yong Geun– as he hits the road. 

These frames also have a slightly bluish tint. Minutes later, it shifts to a warmer colour tone in the cafe. We have a wide frame with two people talking, one confessing he’s gay to a girl who still thinks she has a chance with him, as she orders the Soju.

When it’s time again for face closeups, the frame starts to discolour. Especially when it turns towards the protagonist’s face as the confession moves to the topic of HIV.

More or less, every frame was well crafted throughout the film. Some will linger for a while in the eyes of the audience, long after the film is over. Like the fireworks going off at a nearby distance when he’s sitting on the seashore alone, or standing like a statue for a long handshake during his one night stand with another gay man.

This is where the poetry starts.

The Characters

The poetry takes hold with each character entering. None of them are really minor or side characters. They all have their own reasons to exist.

The Old Man

The father is introduced in a frame where he is eating noodles alone. It soon closes up on his right ear, showing the hearing aid sitting inside.

He looks insignificant at the first watch. But on a second one, he starts resembling a possible future self of his gay son. He looks like a possibility we’re unable to shake off. Eating ramen alone in front of the TV or sleeping on the floor wrapped in a blanket, forgetting to turn it off– all of them look like a possible future.

Towards the end, the blinking TV keeps throwing shades of colours on his blanket. It’s a mini budget light show. Yong Geun returns and enters the blanket, and soon breaks into tears.

The camera again focuses on the old man’s face during his birthday scene. It is isolated and lit.

The Kid

The kid is the fifth character the audience sees. Again, looking insignificant at first. It soon becomes clear that he’s creating a contrast with his old grandpop.

As for whether he too is a possibility of Yong Geun’s own past or not is probably best to leave open for the audience’s own subjective interpretations.

But at a certain point, the little boy decides to kiss on the lips of his HIV positive uncle without knowing, and delivers a jumpscare. It is a strong moment when the film decides to play with the audience’s prejudice. And it does it very successfully.

The Women

The film has two women. A taxi driver who Yong Geun finds on the road– he once proposed to her, in his fourth grade, and his sister-in-law.

When he’s talking with her on the phone inside his room, the sister-in-law peeks inside. She’s visibly delighted that he’s talking to a woman, a ‘Yoja’ – indicating the family doesn’t have a clue about his sexuality.

He soon meets the childhood crush in a cafe, only to tell her everything. These scenes are often too realistic and based on real life moments masculine gay men’s experience. They also tone down his queerness unwittingly, while proving that he can be so easily mistaken for a straight guy.

But besides the kid, they are the only characters awarded warm colours by the director. Yong Geun is brutally honest with one, elusive with the other.

The Gays

The second gay character enters when Yong Geun goes for a one night stand at a hotel in his hometown.

The guy is younger and passionate, but also sneaky. He sends Yong Geun to the bathroom and then takes out his wallet from his bag. It almost looks like he is going to steal his money and run away.

But instead, he finds out that the guy in the bathroom is HIV positive. As soon as that happens, the film’s own queer universe divides into two– one with a gay man on HIV medication, another with a second gay man who doesn’t have the disease and tries to escape when Yong Geun forces himself onto him.

This is also the only scene where the audience hears the word ‘transmission’, and also one where one gay character threatens to call the police to have another arrested.

The Bags

In the first few scenes, a dangling Lotte bag is seen in the protagonist’s hand. It changes to H Mart in the end.

They supplement the character’s solo journey in strange ways. They stay with him towards the very end, as it becomes apparent Yong Geun is again hitting the road– to find a home that probably doesn’t exist.

And he will soon get old, alone. Without a hand to hold– that too, he will probably never find.

Finally, HIV AIDS

On April 08, 2026, Leonaordo posted a clip on his Twitter. The caption is in Portuguese, which translates into this:

‘Associating gays and LGBTs with AIDS was a weapon used against ourselves for decades, including by governments. Today, it is possible to have a full life even with HIV. We don’t need to reinforce those narratives’.

Leonaordo himself is a famous gay porn star, someone gay people around the world would recognise at the first glance.

When HIV AIDS is no longer seen as a gay disease, no queer history is ever complete without mentioning it. To this day, it is sometimes the only pretext conservative countries often use to create some sorts of frameworks for legal rights of queers. The excuse remains the same– if the LGBTQ sex scene is pushed underground, chances of HIV infections will be higher. This continues to scapegoat the queer community even when attempting to offer protections.

Shin Jong Hun did a wonderful job portraying the ordeal of a solo gay man in South Korea who has the virus in his body. So did Won Yeongsang, the cinematographer, and Seo Dong Gab, who plays Yong Geun. Both were magnificent at their jobs. 

The film will be remembered for its poetic language of camera and all the emotions woven around the script. Especially for gay men who are destined to fade away, alone— except, HIV is no longer the oblivion it once used to be.