WOMAN ON THE BEACH

After a creatively blocked filmmaker, Jung-rae, convinces his friend to join him on a brief holiday to finish a script, he begins an affair with the friend’s girlfriend, Mun-suk. Later, Jung-rae returns to the beach and meets Sun-hee, a woman who resembles Mun-suk.

Presented in a new restoration, Woman on the Beach opened Hong Sang-soo’s world to female characters, prefiguring his collaborations with Kim Min-hee. Subtly comedic and profoundly revealing about relationships between the genders, the film also pokes fun at the self-important artist at its center.