Jina is the best employee at a credit card company call center. She avoids building close relationships, choosing instead to live and work alone. Jina maintains her solitary lifestyle well until her irritating neighbour, who would attempt to strike up conversations with her, is discovered dead a few days after his lonely death. From that moment, tons of relationships she decided to ignore suddenly start to bug her: her father hounding her over her mother’s inheritance, Sujin, a new recruit, who is bothersome but likeable, and nonchalant Seonghun, her new neighbour.

Thoughtfully addressing the phenomenon of holojok ― a neologism formed by combining the Korean words holo (alone) and jok (group) to define the growing number of people who prefer to be left alone in one-person households, accounting for one-third of total homes in Seoul ― “Aloners” is the outstanding debut feature from Hong Sung-eun.