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Poll

What is the Best Film Directed By Hong Sangsoo?

don't like any
0 (0%)
haven't seen any
1 (20%)
The Day the Pig Fell Into the Well
0 (0%)
The Power of Kangwon Province
0 (0%)
Virgin Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors
1 (20%)
On the Occasion of Remembering the Turning Gate
0 (0%)
Woman is the Future of Man
1 (20%)
Tale of Cinema
0 (0%)
Woman on the Beach
0 (0%)
Night and Day
0 (0%)
Lost in the Mountains (sh)
0 (0%)
Like You Know It All
0 (0%)
Hahaha
0 (0%)
Oki's Movie
2 (40%)
The Day He Arrives
0 (0%)
In Another Country
0 (0%)
Our Sunhi
0 (0%)
Nobody's Daughter Haewon
0 (0%)
Hill of Freedom
0 (0%)
Right Now, Wrong Then
0 (0%)
Yourself and Yours
0 (0%)
On the Beach at Night Alone
0 (0%)
Claire's Camera
0 (0%)
The Day After
0 (0%)
Grass
0 (0%)
Hotel by the River
0 (0%)
The Woman Who Ran
0 (0%)
Introduction
0 (0%)
In Front of Your Face
0 (0%)

Total Members Voted: 5

Author Topic: Sangsoo, Hong  (Read 9358 times)

sdedalus

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Sangsoo, Hong
« on: October 28, 2010, 08:07:39 PM »

He's great at titles.

1. Oki's Movie
2. Like You Know It All
3. Hahaha
4. Woman on the Beach
5. Woman is the Future of Man
« Last Edit: December 24, 2015, 06:39:12 PM by 1SO »
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MartinTeller

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Re: Hong Sangsoo - Director's Best
« Reply #1 on: October 28, 2010, 08:12:18 PM »
Haven't seen any, but many of his films have a high Predicted Score for me at Criticker.

Bill Thompson

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Re: Hong Sangsoo - Director's Best
« Reply #2 on: October 28, 2010, 10:00:40 PM »
Haven't seen any

flieger

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Re: Hong Sangsoo - Director's Best
« Reply #3 on: October 28, 2010, 11:21:59 PM »

Verite

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Re: Hong Sangsoo - Director's Best
« Reply #4 on: October 28, 2010, 11:41:01 PM »
I'm undecided between [edit]Kangwon Turning Gate[/edit] and VSBBHB.
« Last Edit: February 02, 2013, 11:21:39 PM by Verite »
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pixote

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Re: Hong Sangsoo - Director's Best
« Reply #5 on: October 29, 2010, 03:30:15 AM »
Like You Know It All  (Hong Sang-soo, 2009)
My first Hong film.  It didn't impress, but I'm still interested in checking out some of his other stuff.  Except for the bifurcated structure thing (and the accompanying doubling, which bored me), I did like the style here.  Just not the writing.  Felt very slight and often forced (contrary to reputation).  There were a quite a few nice, individual moments (I remember none offhand, unfortunately), but not enough to recommend the movie.
Grade: C+
Still interested in the rest of his work.

pixote
« Last Edit: November 01, 2019, 10:00:57 PM by 1SO »
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sdedalus

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Re: Hong Sangsoo - Director's Best
« Reply #6 on: October 29, 2010, 04:08:22 AM »
Quote

Like You Know It All - Hong Sang-soo's films, at least the three I've seen (this along with Woman on the Beach and Woman is the Future of Man, are what would happen if Apichatpong Weerasethakul decided to make a series of Woody Allen movies. Like Allen, Hong's films follow the romantic misadventures of a neurotic film director; like Apichatpong, his films have a bifurcated structure, wherein the first half sets up characters, situations and themes with the second half consisting of variations on those characters, situations and themes. In this one, Hong's director first travels to a film festival, where he's to serve on the jury. He's rather indifferent to that task, however, preferring to drink with the staff and nurture a grudge against the younger director being honored with a festival retrospective. In the second, he travels to his old school to lecture, and finds the students are largely indifferent to him and his films. In both halves, the director attempts to hook up with the wife of one of his old friends. It's lighter and funnier than Hong's other films, and largely because of that, it's my favorite.
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Dave the Necrobumper

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Re: Hong Sangsoo - Director's Best
« Reply #7 on: November 23, 2010, 03:11:07 AM »
Have not seen any

roujin

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Re: Hong Sangsoo - Director's Best
« Reply #8 on: November 02, 2011, 11:02:37 PM »
Hong Double Feature

Like You Know It All Hong Sangsoo, 2009

The newest Hong film I've seen. This marks an attempt to re-introduce myself to his cinema. I had seen four of his films previously, and I don't think I got much out of them, to be honest. The only things I really registered was that they were about a bunch of Korean douchebags who got drunk and had awkward sexual encounters. This film does nothing to dispel such a notion. Except in this film, it's played as comedy. Which I don't think is the case in something like Kangwon Province, Woman is the Future of Man or Virgin. The film is about some film director of note who goes to be a judge at some random film festival. He gets there and all he does is drink with everyone around, leave women alone so they can be raped (this is played for laughter, lol) and fall asleep during the festival screenings. He's a guy who has nothing going on, really, so he makes up a bunch of stuff to feel petty about (little competitions and jealousies and stuff like that). All things considered, a roujinesque character if there ever was one. Which is to say, a perfectly ridiculous person. The bifurcated structure is back, once again, and the events of the first half get mirrored in the second. For what purpose? That's for some other person to parse out (I'm sure there is plenty of interesting stuff going on in Hong's structures and their callbacks and motifs and stuff, a whole book can be written about it). But the film is funny. So all is forgiven.


Turning Gate Hong Sangsoo, 2002

This, on the other hand, is all kinds of painful and sad. An out-of-work actor goes to some random city to hang out with an old friend. He then proceeds to hook up with the girl his best friend really likes. This makes things awkward for all involved. Because awkwardness is the natural state of the universe. Somewhere along the way, he hears the story of the turning gate, about some reincarnated guy who turns into a snake in order to stalk a princess. After the actor is done is done being a douchebag to this one girl, he goes somewhere else and sort of/kind of/not really acts out the myth, while trying to put the mack on some married lady. This half is all sad and pathetic, as the actor realizes that he knows the girl from somewhere, from some time that was better than this. There are chapter headings every once in a while that tell you more or less what's going to happen, more structural tricks from Hong. As the film progresses, the deep, deep hole inside of the main character becomes apparent and in a desperate attempt to regain what was once lost (or what he thought he had?), he just completely overcompensates and gets crazy and obsessive. Hong's male characters seem to be all selfish douchebags, who force other people into their own ruinous emotional states, just because. I could relate. and The rain washes it all away, of course. Or, at least, it makes you turn back.
« Last Edit: November 01, 2019, 10:01:19 PM by 1SO »

Life as Fiction

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Re: Hong Sangsoo - Director's Best
« Reply #9 on: November 03, 2011, 02:13:42 PM »
Haven't seen any, but many of his films have a high Predicted Score for me at Criticker.

Get 'er done.  Highly recommend Tale of Cinema, Turning Gate and Night and Day.