Wow. This is the most straightforward Hong film since The Day He Arrives, it has a two-part structure and occasional repetitive echoes, but it remains focused and direct in a manner he rarely goes for. The only distancing effect here is the one the audience brings with their likely awareness of the Korean tabloid coverage of Hong and Kim romance. As usual with Hong he is operating into the dual modes of his careful attention to the small time minutiae of his character’s interactions and the large demonstrative feeble-like quality of the tale his editing brings together about them. Here that means Kim Min-hee character has an inevitable destination on the beach at night alone as the title promises. Her…

[8]

"The man who asked the time, later on the window-washer...these guys popping up. Do you think that's Death?"

This was a question posed to me by The Perspicacious Shelly Kraicer, who has had the good fortune to see Hong's latest film twice. It's highly plausible, especially given the way the window-washer is just hovering on the balcony toward the end of the film, his task completed but staring into the hotel room like a creep. But what's more significant than the particular details is the fact that this is a question that can be legitimately posed in a Hong film. The man who for so long has drawn comparisons to Rohmer is now possibly incorporating elements of Buñuel or…

"Where's love? It's not even visible. You need to see it in order to search for it."

I actually watch this movie 5 times over the years, I just hesitated to write a review about it, because I didn't know how to put it into words my feelings about him, but the film explores the power dynamics between colleagues, acquaintances, friendship and gossip. This is the beauty and strength of Hong Sang-soo’s filmmaking; he gently moves the viewer into witnessing basic everyday occurrences and conversations. We witness the intricacies that take place during cigarette breaks, long drunken dinners, awkward cups of coffee, walks in a park, visiting tourist attractions, lonely film festivals and cold grey walks on the beach at…

Bem a cara do Hong Sang-soo fazer o filme mais impiedoso da sua carreira justamente quando é pra tratar sem muitos rodeios da própria vida pessoal. Não que todos os outros já não fossem em algum nível sobre isso, mas aqui parece que o próprio espírito de Maurice Pialat deu uma assombrada gostosa no cara. Mesmo pra quem não tá ligado no relacionamento dele com a Kim Min-hee é um dos filmes mais desoladores nessa relação entre romance e isolamento, nessa culpa implícita que acaba destruindo todo círculo social possível. Tem uma desesperança tão franca, tão não hesitante e livre de qualquer projeção distanciadora que a única coisa que sobra é uma morbidez muito bruta. A própria figura que persegue…

60/100

A.V. Club review. Not particularly effective for me as cinema à clef—maybe I just know too much about Hong's personal life at the moment, but this film's uncharacteristic emotional directness feels vaguely secondhand, especially when his surrogate finally shows up. (I'd hoped that we'd never see the director at all, that he'd remain entirely past-tense.) But I'm immensely excited to see Hong experimenting with...I'm not sure whether to call it surrealism or absurdism or just inexplicable weirdness. It blows my mind that some critics (e.g. the usually perspicacious Guy Lodge in Variety) failed even to mention the recurring presence of a male figure wearing a dark coat and knit cap, who's first seen asking Young-hee for the time ("You…

Early thoughts..

I never understood when Hong said he was more influenced by Cezanne than any other filmmaker, until now...

And even outside of its considerable formal/structural merits, this is personal filmmaking taken to an almost unparalleled degree of self-inquiry, both for its director and lead actress - it's perhaps necessary to be aware of the South Korean media circus surrounding Hong Sang-Soo and Kim Min-Hee's affair in 2015/6 to fully understand what is happening here...also because of this it seems more collaborative than HHS's prior efforts, lending itself to a sense of equality between performer and director which I haven't experienced before. Truly remarkable...I've always liked HHS but admittedly considered him a bit slight (but that was always his…

Hong's recent work has started to upend his usual comic milieu, homing in on the tragic aspects of his characters' inability to see each other, or more accurately the gulf of emotional experience between oblivious men and the women whom they take for granted. Hong's men, so often filmmakers, have always had at least one foot in self-criticism, but here he actively puts himself on blast for his affair with Kim Min-hee; his director avatar is mostly talked about rather than seen, but the impact of his casual disregard reverberates across the entire film. Kim herself plays Younghee, reeling from the social fallout of her affair, often isolated in frame to emphasize her alienation from friends and colleagues. Landscapes become…

C'est le meilleur film d'Hong Song Soo pour moi à ce jour. Ce film peut se transposer dans une ville de France où des gens qui ont fuit Paris parce qu'ils n'en pouvaient plus retrouve une comédienne perdue qui comme Naomie Watts dans Mulholland Drive rêve qu'elle est une star endormie sur la plage alors que sa carrière est au stade zéro. Ce film parle des désillusions, est une réflexion sur la réussite qui se révèle être un mot vide de sens. Même quand on réussit ne rate t'on pas sa vie. La vie n'est elle pas un ratage obligé? On vieillit trop vite et nos idéaux se sont toujours éloigné trop vite. Le réalisateur rêvé dans le film ne…

Primera vez que entro en contacto con Hong Sang-soo y ya ha roto mis esquemas cinéfilos. Lo primero que me ha maravillado de este prestigioso director surcoreano es su enorme capacidad de convertir los guiones en "conversaciones reales", es decir, es como si se estuvieran filmando escenas cotidianas sin que los protagonistas de éstas supieran que existe una cámara delante. Esto, combinado con una naturalidad, sencillez y elegancia totales, hacen brillar la esencia y punto fuerte de Sang-soo.
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Pero más allá de mis primeras impresiones, la cinta tiene a alguien que acapara toda nuestra atención: su protagonista, interpretada por una sublime y rompedora Kim Min-hee, musa indiscutible del realizador. Ésta decide viajar a Europa para pasar el "duelo" de…

"what i want is to live in a way that suits me"

i recently started reviewing the films i watch and really love first, and then rating them because my thoughts get kinda organized by sorting them out in here. but with this one, i don't really know what to write. there's a continuous feeling of uncertainty, vulnerability and accessibility in this, that feels so personal. i knew nothing about this film, i just knew that i needed to get into hong sang-soo's filmography. when i finished it, i had so many questions on why this feels so personal and intimate, and after some reading i realized. hong sang-soo really did what he wanted to do and i felt it.…