In Park Syeyoung’s sci-fi nightmare The Fin, a dying father wants his daughter to inherit his fin. Getting it to Mia means finding a woman who’s surviving by passing as human.
Mia, played by Yeon Yeji, lives in a post-war “United Korea” where genetic mutations have produced people born with fins, known as Omegas. Behind a wall, they’re controlled and exploited for labor in a country devastated by pollution and water shortages.
Reviews describe their work as cleaning contaminated seas and toxic waste, while the government spreads warnings about their supposedly dangerous bodies.
When an Omega dies from overwork, he entrusts a colleague, played by Goh-woo, with finding Mia so she can receive her father’s fin in a funeral ritual. She’s hiding among humans and working at a fishing shop.
Meanwhile, Sujin, a young government worker played by Kim Pureum, pursues an Omega and begins questioning the ideology she serves. Jeong Young-do and Maeng Joo-one also appear in the cast.
Park has connected this world’s persecution to immigrant workers he saw living in hostile conditions along Korea’s coast. At a Seoul press conference in July 2026, he said: “I came up with the idea of the Omegas while thinking about how marginalized people in Korean society face discrimination and how they are altered by government propaganda and image washing.”
The father’s final request has a personal origin, too. Park said his grandmother’s death from COVID, when his family couldn’t perform their usual funeral rites, helped inspire the film.
“It made me think about what it means to lose someone,” he said. He’s also cited Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia as a reference for the fin’s role in driving the story.
Park previously made The Fifth Thoracic Vertebra (2022), about a creature born in an abandoned mattress that feeds on human vertebrae. The Fin had its world premiere in Locarno’s Filmmakers of the Present competition on August 9, 2025, and screened at Sitges that year. It also received the CAPRA Creative Award at the 14th Muju Film Festival.
Kani Releasing has released an official trailer and is handling the film’s North American release. Upcoming screenings include Globe Cinema in Calgary, November 18 to 22; Roxy Cinema in New York, November 27 and 29; Lark Theatre in Larkspur, California, starting November 28; and Revue Cinema in Toronto, December 1.
Park’s scheduled for Q&As after both Roxy screenings and will attend the Toronto screening. A January 2027 VOD release has been reported, with no streaming platform or exact digital release date confirmed in Kani’s listings.
