What it’s about
Young-hee (Kim), a successful actress, travels to Germany to visit an old friend and to get some distance and perspective on a failed relationship with a married director. After an uncertain time lapse, Young-hee is back in Korea with old friends, but the former romance still weighs heavily on her. She then runs into her old lover at a party, and with Soju wine flowing freely, confronts her ex-lover with angry insults and home truths.
Why we love it
Winning the best actress award at the Berlin film festival, Kim is the emotional heart of this plaintive study of male/female dynamics. Sticking with his familiar themes of loneliness and searching, with introspective characters musing about life and love, Hong infuses this film with autobiographical details more familiar to a home audience, who are well versed in his extramarital affair with Kim. Tabloid fodder aside, the director delivers an elegy to the melancholia and regret surrounding a lost relationship.