“The Mother and the Bear” may be the cutest thing branded “Korean” since BTS, or even the Kia Soul.

Sure, it’s a Canadian indie dramedy by a Chinese-Canadian filmmaker. But writer-director Johnny Ma brings an outsider’s view and respect for Korean manners, mores and Kimchi to this wistful fish-out-of-water romance.

Ma (“Old Stone”) taps into melodrama and magical realism for this adorable, feel-good mash-up of “While You Were Sleeping,” “Eat Drink Man Woman” and “The Wedding Banquet.”

The Korean ex-pat Sumi (Leere Park) has started a new life in Winnepeg, Manitoba, which newcomers nicknamed “Winter-Peg” generations ago. She copes with the snow and the cold and kind of ignores her mother’s endless calls from the Old Country. And then spies a bunny in an icy alley and notices what the bunny was hopping away from just as she was trying to snap a photo.

A bear causes Sumi to slip and hit her head. That brings Mrs. Sara Kim (Kim Ho-jung), a widow who runs a Korean guest house, over to see her comatose 26 year-old and get a taste of the compassionate and competent Canadian health care system in action. Dr. Jenny (Samantha Kendrick) gently reassures the mother as she puts Sumi in a medically-induced coma to aid her recovery.

Mrs. Kim, with a little boost from her Winnepeg sister Minji (Susan Hanson), starts to piece together her daughter’s life as she unpacks and decorates Sumi’s new/old apartment. No food in the fridge? Time to make Kimchi! No photos of family? Here’s a framed shot of Dad Sara flew over to park on her daughter’s mantel. But that window she keeps closing against the cold? That’s to let the cat in, she discovers. Eventually.

What Sumi really needs is “a husband to take care of her,” Mom thinks. That Korean hunk (Jonathan Kim) she bumps into, slack-jawed, and then faints in front of in a market will do. He takes her to the hospital. He must be a DOCTOR. No, “but my girlfriend is.”

Guess who turns out to be that doctor girlfriend? Guess what Mrs. Kim discovers when she ducks into the Tasty Seoul restaurant? Why, it’s the hunk’s Dad (Lee Won-jae), who disapproves of his boy’s choice of gorgeous blonde mate. And guess what comes about

Writer-director Ma tacitly acknowledges age-old “marry your own kind” racism that’s rife throughout Asia as a way of sidling into the bigger “disapproval” that we know is coming. He manages to avoid having the parents conspire to bust up the son’s relationship so that he’ll be ready to rebound with a nice Korean-born woman fresh out of a coma. What Ma conjures up instead is a “swipe right” scheme stage-managed by folks too old to know social media well but certainly old enough to know better than doing what they’re doing.

Yes, there are predictable twists aplenty in this script. But Kim (“Emergency Declaration”) takes her rare chance for a leading lady turn and runs with it. The easy laughs come from what we figure out and untraveled Mom doesn’t figure out about the daughter, from Sara’s naive appreciation of the many “other” uses of a boxed vibrator she unlacks and the ways she clumsily takes selfies of her Kimchi preps (a grand montage for foodies) and lets a young nurse coach her in the traditions of “swipe right” culture.

Sara gripes about “this AWFUL city” to Sumi’s friend and children’s art center co-worker (Amara Pedroso), frets over the Manitoba Maulers that bury her borrowed SUV under snow pretty much daily and decides that she can’t find jars for her Kimchi off the shelf — unless she buys gigantic jars of pickles — which she dumps to reuse. But this trip to an alien culture and the expats within it, with its daily visits to a sick child, is her way of coming into her own.

I love the taste of Winnepeg that “The Mother and the Bear” provides. I used to visit the hometown of Neil Young and the Bachmans of BTO on a regular basis when I lived just across the border, and all I remember about it was the even-colder-than-North-Dakota weather, the Chinese restaurants and jelly donut shops on every corner and the friendly people.

But dear Johnny Ma — dear, dear Johnny Ma. Using “Unchained Melody” for Sara to sentimentally sing along with — ironically or unironically — is cheating. Moviegoers have been crying over that tune since “Ghost.”

So yes, you will giggle at this quaint comedy and be charmed enough to want to reach out and pinch its adorable cheeks. But bring a hanky. I’m just saying.

Rating: unrated, adult subject matter, some profanity

Cast: Kim Ho-jung, Lee Won-jae, Jonathan Kim, Amara Pedroso, Samantha Kendrick and Leere Park.

Credits: Scripted and directed by Johnny Ma. A Dekanalog release.

Running time: 1:40