Tribeca 2025 Review: PEOPLE AND MEAT, Korean GOING IN STYLE Goes Dine and Dash

Meat! It's what's for dinner. If you can't afford it, well ...

People and Meat
The film enjoys its world premiere at Tribeca 2025.

As a vegetarian, I don't have much inherent empathy for the three protagonists in director Yang Jong-hyun's lighthearted tale of three senior citizens who dine and dash around Seoul. I mean, if you can't afford to pay for meat at dinner, don't order it!

Lim Namoo's original screenplay, however, has something else in mind, rather than just meat, with the emphasis falling squarely on the first word in its English-language title. U-sik and Hyeon-jung are men in their latter years who cruise the early morning streets, looking for cardboard that can be sold for pennies. Meanwhile, similar-aged Hwa-jin sells vegetables, likewise on the street, and constantly scowling at the two old men squabbling with each other.

In contemporary Korea, where younger family members are expected to care for older family members, neither U-sik, Hyeon-jung, nor Hwa-jin have families that can care for them, and so they are left alone, scrambling to find enough to eat and, in essence, waiting to die.

One day, U-sik invites the others out for dinner, where they enjoy a delicious meal, mostly of delectable meats. Then, he reveals that he does not have any money to pay for the meal, and tells them how to skip out without paying. Initially shocked, Hyeon-jung and Hwa-jin go along with U-sik's plan, since they don't have any money either, and quickly come to realize the great thrill they enjoyed from what they did.

To this point, the film reminds of Martin Brest's Going in Style (1979), in which senior citizens George Burns, Art Carney, and Lee Strasberg decide to rob a bank, mostly for the potential thrills before they die. After establishing a kinship with that film, People and Meat steers its narrative ship in a different direction.

It's not only the meat that thrills the new friends here. (Okay, a lot of it is the meat, which they haven't eaten in quite a long time.) Primarily, though, it's a culmination of the emotional turmoil that they've been suffering for years, which is epitomized at one point by one of U-sik's elderly friends, who reveals that he's been starving himself for months so he can die peacefully and no longer be a burden to anyone.

Truthfully, until you've grown old and/or have lost some of your own capabilities, you don't -- you can't -- fully realize how soul-sapping it can be to grow old or lose some of what you were able to do in the past, especially if you don't have family members or friends to support you. It's a drag, emotionally and physically, and it can easily wear you out.

Director Yang Jong-hyun and the principal cast capture these emotions in a relatable manner, despite the film's tone veering unsteadily from light comedy to sentimental melodrama. The ending doesn't quite 'stick the landing,' instead remaining in a 'descending glide' mode for too long, but overall the film works as a kind-hearted commentary on older people and the challenges that come with growing old in a modern society that doesn't want to think about it.