The Last of the Sea Women

As with most people who take the time to watch this fascinating documentary, I knew nothing about "haenyeos" beforehand, but I learned a lot in just 90 minutes. Yes, it's challenging to summarize a tradition that began nearly 2,000 years ago in such a short timeframe, but I think the filmmakers did an excellent job. For me, the documentary provided a riveting introduction to a way of life that's on the verge of extinction due to a number of factors.

I especially enjoyed meeting the two younger haenyeos who not only share their "aunties'" passion for the profession, but may also be able to convince a younger generation to carry on the tradition.

Overall, The Last Of The Sea Women is an emotional, educational and beautifully filmed introduction to a group of amazing women whose story I truly enjoyed hearing.

I would highly recommend anyone wanting to learn more about this amazing tradition, read The Island of The Sea Women by Lisa See to get a more in depth understanding g of this culture. There is so much more to the Haenyou than this did orovides and a lot more history.

I watched this to learn more after finishing the book. And it was cool to see them in action, but too much fo us on what was happening in Japan. Although I understand and realize it's important, but it didn't teach me as much as I wanted to learn. Jeju island was deeply affected by the Korean War and the April 3 uprising that would have been more interesting since it directly affected these people.

Given that it's an A24 production, I had high hopes for good characters and storytelling but was ultimately disappointed.

The film is beautifully shot and the women profiled are incredible, but there is so little character building that an hour and a half later, I don't feel any closer to any of the characters. The film touches on some of the seawomen's past, the discrimination they faced, the lack of labour rights, and how they finally rose above it all. But the director gives the issue quite a superficial treatment using a few standard soundbites without diving deeper.

I also feel I didn't learn much about the "haenyeo" women. Why are the divers all women but their "bosses" all men? Is the area accessible to haenyeo divers only? Why are they able to compete with more modern forms of fishing? Given Malala is the producer, I also expected a deeper dive into related social issues.

Overall, the film is beautiful but lacklustre in emotion and substance. It's fun to see dozens of septuagenarians free diving, laughing and having a good time, but this isn't enough to sustain the film for an hour and a half. It feels like it's TV film you can watch on Discovery Channel.

I enjoyed the concept very much and it was fascinating to learn about these women, but I felt the narrative lacking a bit. Felt like there was an opportunity to say a lot more, and I found the attempt to tie it into existential circumstances in the last third was a bit forced and didn't totally land for me.

I would've been much more interested in learning about the women's personal lives and their families and their mental hurdles and struggles rather than the focus on relatively dry speeches at the UN and whatnot. But overall pretty solid and touching, and the women documented are nothing short of remarkable.

I wanted to hear more about their training to become divers, their lives, etc. Instead it just had footage of harvesting and told a little about the divers. Then it switched to protesting Japan's release of nuclear wastewater into the ocean. Not at all what I was interested in. I read about the sea women in a book that was more moving and interesting than this movie. Skip the movie, read the books about the hanyeo women. You will learn more and be pulled into their lives in a much more emotional way.

The book also talked about the unique adaptations of these women's bodies. Scientists studied them and their cold resistance and other unique abilities.