The Picture Bride

An incredible story of female friendship, inspired by the real-life experience of Korea’s ‘picture brides’ — women who travelled to Hawaii to marry Korean labourers, having seen only a photo of their intended husband.

In 1910, in Korea, three women stood in line at the immigration office, planning on immigrating to Hawaii in hopes of a better life. But different fates awaited each of these women, who bravely left behind their home and their parents in search of a better life. Hong-ju, who dreams of a marriage of ‘natural love’ meets a man who looks twenty years older than his picture; Song-hwa, who wants to escape from her life of ridicule as the granddaughter of a shaman, meets a lazy drunkard. And then there’s Willow, whose 26-year-old groom, Taewan, looks just as he did in his picture …

In trying to escape their lives of poverty and oppression, these women took an incalculable risk. And while things don’t turn out quite as they’d hoped, even for Willow, they do find something that makes their journey worthwhile — each other.