Park Syeyoung’s horrific, surreal sci-fi thriller The Fin arrives in limited theaters this month, offering a grim vision of human mutation, ecological collapse, and a society built on exploitation. What happens when humanity's worst instincts survive the end of the world? That's the ugly question at the heart of The Fin. Kani Releasing has released a new trailer for the film ahead of its theatrical engagement, offering a glimpse of a strange, unsettling future populated by mutated outcasts and the remnants of a decaying civilization.
Co-produced by Coproduction Office (The Square, Triangle of Sadness), The Fin takes place in a post-war version of a unified Korea, where mutated mermen known as Omegas have been relegated to the fringes of society. In an already ravaged landscape where clean water is scarce and ecological collapse has reshaped everyday life, these outcasts are treated as little more than disposable labor. FANGORIA is proud to provide the exclusive first look at the trailer, which can be seen below:
The story stars actor Goh-woo as an Omega who receives a final request from a dying member of his community: find his daughter, Mia (Yeon Yeji), who's been hiding among humans, and deliver his fin to her as part of a traditional rite of passing. His search puts him on a collision course with Sujin (Kim Pureum), a young civil servant whose faith in the state's ideology is beginning to fracture as she pursues the Omega for her own reasons.
Park leans into expressionistic digital cinematography, bathing his vision of societal collapse in rich, saturated colors and surreal imagery. This is a monster-as-metaphor movie shaped by post-industrial decay, political paranoia, and the fantastical possibilities of human evolution. Beneath its mutated-merman mythology, The Fin also takes aim at xenophobia and South Korea's relentless economic growth, imagining a future in which ecological devastation and geopolitical instability have left society scrambling to preserve its existing power structures. The Omegas may be the ones who've physically changed, but the film's real monsters appear to be the humans who've decided what to do with them without their consent.
The Fin made its world premiere in the Filmmakers of the Present section at the Locarno Film Festival, before making additional stops at Filmfest Hamburg, Sitges Film Festival, and the Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival. His short film The Masked Monster also premiered at Locarno in 2024.
This marks Park's second feature following 2022's The Fifth Thoracic Vertebra, which picked up three awards at the Bucheon Film Festival, the Best Director Award at the Seoul Independent Film Festival, and a Special Jury Mention at Fantasia.
South Korean horror has been having a big moment in the last few years, and The Fin is no exception. While some folks might argue this is more of a sci-fi dystopian thriller, any story that draws parallels between how we treat “monsters” in fiction and how powerful institutions treat real people they deem “lesser-than” is an absolute horror story. There's something very Black Mirror about the story. Sure, we might not (yet) be subjugating people because they're part fish, but everything about The Fin feels completely in line with the oppression occurring all around the globe.
The theatrical run for The Fin is launching with screenings at Roxy Cinema New York on November 27 and 29, 2026, with director Park Syeyoung in person. A limited theatrical release will follow in select cities, including a December 1 screening at Toronto's Revue Cinema with Park Syeyoung in attendance. You can find the full details and purchase tickets by clicking here.
Additional theatrical engagements are expected to follow before the film arrives on video-on-demand in January 2027. Keep your eyes on FANGORIA for more details as they become available.
