·September 24, 2026·4 min read

Jonas Bjerre Takes Us Through Hyesun’s World on “Hana Korea: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack”

About the Artist

Former Mew frontman Jonas Bjerre has released Hana Korea: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack, marking his first major musical release since leaving the Danish alternative rock band. The 15-track album arrived digitally on August 21, 2026, with a vinyl release set for November 20 through Invisible Hands Music. The soundtrack accompanies Hana Korea, a Korean-Danish drama directed by Frederik Sølberg and co-written by Sharon Choi, based on the true story of Hyesun, a young North Korean defector trying to build a new life in South Korea. The film received the Flash Forward Audience Award at the Busan International Film Festival ahead of its wider 2026 theatrical release.

The movie follows Hyesun after her escape, focusing on the loneliness, bureaucracy, and difficulties of adapting to a completely different life, from her time at Hanawon to settling in Seoul. Minha Kim (Pachinko) plays Hyesun, with Joo-ryoung Kim (Squid Game) and Seohyun An (Okja) also starring as fellow refugees. Musically, Bjerre moves into atmospheric, drone-heavy territory, while Hike To The Sun features South Korean indie musician Yeohee Kim. Frederik Sølberg and Sori Kim also contribute to the soundtrack. The vinyl edition was mastered by Miles Showell at Abbey Road Studios.

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The Album

Arrival opens the album with an electronic pulse, like stepping barefoot onto cold tiles in a room where the lights are on but nothing feels familiar yet. The beat keeps moving through nervousness and precision carrying the strange weight of a door opening onto something you cannot quite see. Then comes Hyesun’s Theme, led by a lonely acoustic piano hanging in the air by itself. Each note is a small thought unfinished, surrounded by soft ambient haze. There is warmth somewhere underneath it, but it stays just out of reach.

Meanwhile, Hanawon, named after the resettlement centre, feels colder. Mechanical drones move beneath distant textures, like fluorescent lights humming above an empty hallway. There is shelter here, a bed, a roof, an almost promise of somewhere safe, but the walls seem to stretch a little too far in every direction for comfort. Letter to My Mother (Ambient Ver.) the first of three variations; drifts in like an unsettled thought. Soft synths pass through one another, weightless and pale, like a feather caught in a night wind. It sounds like watching something precious disappear into the dark, knowing you cannot follow.

Girl’s Night, featuring Sori Kim and co-written with Rimko, is a short, bright burst of chaos. K-pop energy, neon lights, crowded streets, too many sounds at once. Making Seoul sound very young, very loud, and impossible to keep up with. After that, The Biggest City I Have Ever Seen, featuring Sasha Ryabina’s ghostly choir arrangements, opens a cold window wider. The city stretches endlessly below, all glowing towers and rivers of headlights. The choir rises above it like mist, making Seoul feel beautiful from a distance yet small from within it.

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Spanish Restaurant 1’s sparse acoustic textures sound like clinking glasses and distant voices imagined between notes. There is something quietly weary about it, the music finding beauty in the repetition of another long shift. Then, with Hyesun’s Theme – Reprise, the piano returns, but the air around it has changed. The notes are fragile now, though the sadness has not left. It is as if the same room has been left untouched while the person standing inside it has somehow become harder to recognise.

Lastly, Hike to the Sun, featuring Yeohee Kim, the album’s only traditional singer-songwriter track and its warmest moment. Bjerre and Kim meet over acoustic guitar and bass, played by director Frederik Sølberg himself. It sounds like morning arriving slowly after a very long night. Not triumphant, or overly sweet, but just warm enough to make you believe the light is real.

The way the album moves makes each track feel like another room Hyesun has to enter, another street she has to learn, another face she has to remember. Some moments feel enormous and overwhelming, while others shrink down into piano notes, faraway voices, and tiny sounds. That contrast makes the soundtrack feel personal, because the world around her can be huge while her own thoughts remain very small and close inside her head. In that way it allows the listener to wander through them.

Now, this is just a glimpse, there are more tracks waiting to be discovered, and I’m sure you and I will both come back to them here, to relive little moments from the movie all over again.