The Day He Arrives (2011)

In Hong Sang-soo’s The Day He Arrives (2011), a young film director Seong-Jun (Yoo Jun-sang) walks down the street of Seoul, wearing a puffy coat and a travelling backpack, intending to stay with a friend, a film critic, Young-ho (Kim Sang-joon). The director has made four movies but is in an on-going hiatus, living further […]

Breaking News (2004)

Director Johnnie To and his Milky Way production company set themselves a challenge with Breaking News (2004): How to restage the street shoot-out from Heat but introduce it with an unbroken seven minute shot? Opening with a showdown conveyed in that one-shot take between a heist crew (led by Richie Jen) and a squad of […]

Murina (2021)

Deep down in the blue. A morning errand dive for teenager Juljia (Gracija Filipović) and her father Ante (Leon Lučev). The type of father whose moods cloud and control the household. Underneath the water, he can’t say anything, demean and insult. They both carry spearguns to catch eels. Underwater is also where Julijia finds escape […]

On The Beach At Night Alone (2017)

A beach is always a contemplative site in cinema, and South Korean director Hong Sang-soo seems to return to it as a space for his characters. On The Beach At Night Alone (2017) features two beaches – one in Hamburg, the other in South Korea – and neither takes place in the pitch-black of night […]

Piercing (2018)

Sanctuary, a film about the power balance in a BDSM arrangement, stars Christopher Abbott and Margaret Qualley, in a hotel-set two-hander with dark psycho-sexual themes. It almost felt like Abbott had made this movie before, or was making a habit of using his deep black eyes and dramatic intensity to be in a ruinous pairing […]