On the eve of his mother’s tenth death anniversary, CHEOL (a twenty year old Korean-American) accepts terms for his mandatory Korean military conscription, one he doesn’t need to attend since he’s an American citizen. It’s a hostile and hierarchical environment, but Cheol plans on going to consummate his idea of manhood.

That’s how he was raised by his father (GONG, his Korean immigrant father) based on traditional, Korean standards of masculinity where emotions equate to weakness. Cheol buzzes his hair for his enrollment prior to visiting his estranged father for the death anniversary.

He arrives a day early to break the news to his dad, arriving while Gong is cleaning up his now-foreclosed barber shop. At the shop, we see Gong is now bald, while he can barely hold a pair of scissors – he has leukemia.

Meanwhile, in the empty home, Cheol finds medicine (Venetoclax) – but there aren’t enough clues to discern Gong’s real condition. When Gong arrives home, he wears a wig to hide his chemo-driven baldness, while he deflects any of Cheol’s discerning questions. However, because of that earlier suspicion, Cheol investigates further, eventually discovering his father’s condition. There, Cheol’s left with a choice – leave his ailing father behind for the military or reconnect with the very person responsible for ingraining those toxic, masculine norms in him. Cheol chooses forgiveness and family, reconnecting with his estranged father by completely shaving his own head. Finally, the two properly grieve the mother together, ten years later, each now without a head of hair.

At its core, CHEOL is a commentary on generational trauma in Asian men, manifesting as toxic masculinity. More specifically, it's about that cultivated fear of vulnerability under the guise that vulnerability equates to weakness. Vulnerability is not weakness — and that cultural and generational oppression is a trauma that men everywhere still face. And at its core, CHEOL is a story of love, forgiveness and healing and how this father and son heal together through empathy.