Hong Sangsoo

[Michael Kerpan]

HaHaHa just came out on DVD (haven't even received my copy yet). And Night and Day still remains missing in action on DVD. I don't imagine OKi's movie will show up on DVD for at least 9 months or so.

[The Fanciful Norwegian]

I liked Hahaha quite a bit (not surprisingly) and the stuff about it being Hong's funniest isn't wide of the mark -- I think it's also funny in a different way than Hong's other movies, which I'll try to write more about later; off the top of my head there's a sort of cruel sad-sack moment where a character talks about his depression medication and everyone else takes it as a joke, then he says in an aside (almost as if addressing the audience) that, no, he's really really depressed, and of course everyone just keeps on laughing. It works fine but it's a kind of "gag" I don't think I've detected in his other films. Unfortunately the disc's PQ is shockingly bad, easily the worst treatment of a Hong film since the Tai Seng discs.

And there is in fact a Japanese DVD of Night and Day. It's an English-friendly version that's missing, but the internet has filled that particular void -- just dig around a bit for the subs. And I don't think the wait for Oki's Movie will be that long, since the wait for his last two features has been considerably shorter. Night and Day clearly has other issues surrounding its release, maybe stemming from the French end.

[Michael Kerpan]

I've been anticipating the arrival of my HaHaHa DVD any day now -- sorry to hear it's not going to look all that good. ;~}

[Peacock]

There seems to be two disks of HaHaHa, I'm guessing you bought the Korean one from YesAsia, but ebay has a bootleg from China, but thought i'd ask anyway...
This is very sad news as a good Korean friend of mine who loves Hong considers HaHaHa his best film, so I was quite excited to finally see it... You're sure it doesn't just look bad because it was shot on DV with little to no artificial lighting?

[The Fanciful Norwegian]

It was shot in HD, with (I believe) the same camera as Like You Know It All and Lost in the Mountains, and the Hahaha disc is substantially worse. It's interlaced and has mosquito noise everywhere and the picture breaks up on any significant motion. It looks like an XviD rip converted back to DVD. Bitrate might be a factor (it's a two-hour film on a single-layer disc), but I think it's just a lousy encode. The Chinese disc is a copy of the Korean one with added Chinese subs.

I'm not telling anyone not to buy the Korean disc, but that's only because the odds of another edition coming anytime soon are low. Maybe the French distributor will give it a release eventually.

[Peacock]

Thanks Fanciful, i'll give this a miss and hope somebody releases it over here, maybe because it did well at Cannes that'll increase the chances (a little)...

[The Fanciful Norwegian]

Some caps from the Hahaha DVD. These are uncompressed PNGs, so they're on the hefty side (I didn't want to introduce any more artifacts):

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None of these are as bad as it gets -- I figured I shouldn't stack the deck by highlighting the worst moments.

[eljacko]

None of those look so bad, I guess. They look about on par with the other US DVDs I've seen - Kangwon Province and Woman on the Beach.

On the other hand, considering the film was shot on HDV, it's rather amazing that they couldn't keep some level of image quality, simply by re-encoding the video into DVD format. I've already done it at least a dozen times with the HDV I've shot, and I'm some petty amateur. I mean, the version of Oki's Movie I saw was a bootleg, with "SAMPLE" imprinted on the upper-right corner the whole time, but it still looked better than those stills.

[Michael Kerpan]

Well, I'll admit that the DVD of HaHaHa will win no prizes for technical merit, but it was certainly watchable. Still, I'd rather have this than no way to see the film. I think the odds of a non-Korean release are essentially zero. After all, even Night and Day (which had a much stronger French connection than this) did not get released on DVD in France.

As to the film, I did enjoy it on first watching, but (as usual) will need to watch this again.

[The Fanciful Norwegian]

Looks like Oki's Movie is due out this month. I can't find any other retailer selling it yet, but the release date is still a week away, and this sort of stealth release doesn't seem abnormal for Korean discs. (I'm definitely not getting it from AsianDB -- they typically charge more than retail and I can wait a week or three if it means not paying their prices.)

[bigP]

Well, I'll admit that the DVD of HaHaHa will win no prizes for technical merit, but it was certainly watchable. Still, I'd rather have this than no way to see the film. I think the odds of a non-Korean release are essentially zero. After all, even Night and Day (which had a much stronger French connection than this) did not get released on DVD in France.

I caught HaHaHa, surprisingly, on Malaysian Airlines over the Christmas break, fully subtitled (and from my limited knowledge, competently too). The quality was, given the small scale dull screens, also of surprisingly good levels throughout. I don't think it necessarily means much, but I'm that little more hopeful that a western release may be on the cards, somewhere.

As to the film, I did enjoy it on first watching, but (as usual) will need to watch this again.

I ended up watching the film on both legs of the journey (twice on the return leg), partly because I just loved it and partly to get my head around the complexities. I'm by no means a Hong Sang-soo expert (with only The Power of Kangwon Province, Virgin Stripped Bare by her Bachelors and Woman is the Future of Man previously under my belt) and this is not my favourite of his work, but it was a characteristically personal study of human interaction and stitches in time (and place) very much made from the same thread as his other works, but with some (for me at least) surprising and refreshing new elements I was not expecting - namely some overtly comedic setpieces

SpoilerShow

the beating by coathanger and the knife wielding tramp

and even a dream sequence (I can't recall another in the 3 other films I have seen of his). It was far an away my favourite film of 2010 and a wry, touching and positive portrait of fragile bonds, cross-stitched story telling and character journeys to nowhere really.

[Peacock]

Hong's been using dream sequences since Woman is the Future of Man (the students in the stadium) in almost every film since (none in Lost in the Mountains, haven't seen Oki's Movie yet), my personal favorite of which is in Like You Know it All which I won't spoil for those who haven't seen it. Hong seems to all out in the dreams in the later films, quite surreal and also hugely hilarious when you realize it's a dream

[zedz]

I'm pretty sure there was a dream sequence all the way back in The Day a Pig Fell into the Well, and wasn't there also one at the end of Night and Day? I see them as an integral part of his ongoing motif of 'life variations' (for want of a better term), all those parallel universe versions of his protagonists' lives that expose their psychological oddities or personality disorders: the his / hers narratives of Virgin Stripped Bare, the double angled narrative structures of Kangwon Province and Ha Ha Ha, the movie in A Tale of Cinema.

Hong seems to have realised that there's nothing particularly science fiction about the concept of 'parallel universes', for him they're a perfectly banal feature of everyday life.

[PerfectDepth]

Received the DVD of Oki’s Movie last night. It’s a solid disc that’s dual layered with a few unsubbed interviews. The film itself is somewhat of a return to formal experimentation for Hong as the film has four discrete parts complete with individual opening credits for each segment.

I can’t think of a filmmaker who uses overlapping concepts and themes better than Hong Sang-Soo. The more familiar you become with his oeuvre, the more rewarding each individual film is. For instance in the first part of Oki’s Movie, Jingu is excluded from the invite list for the teacher’s dinner meeting. It’s barely part of the plot line, but the incident mirrors that from The Day the Pig Fell into the Well so it carries the same resonance. The same can be said of the bottle of Johnny Walker Blue Label the newly tenured teacher brings since it instantly recalls the gift in Power of Kangwon Province.

SpoilerShow

And of course this is just part the launching pad for Jingu’s day, which will color our impression of him. A Q&A scene that follows transforms him from a clueless doofus into someone who’s totally unlikeable, but that’s all based on our belief of the rumor from an audience member. The irony is that the audience member seems to have confused the people involved and Jingu happens to be one of the ‘victims.’ By the end of the film, we’re not even sure if Jingu is clueless at all. We don’t know how much he knows, but he is exactly as the audience member described him – totally ruined and perhaps rightfully vengeful. He's completely human and someone I can relate too.

Anyways, those are my first impressions. I obviously really liked the film. I have more thoughts about it, but I still have to wrap my head around a few things. I’m sure I’ll be rewarded when I give it another viewing.

[yuni_ny]

The Korea Society joins the newly renovated Museum of the Moving Image in presenting Hong Sang-soo’s entertaining Hahaha, a deceptively light romantic comedy won the 2010 Prize Un Certain Regard at Cannes. A filmmaker on the skids plans to move to Canada to meet a film-critic friend. During a drinking session, they decide to share memories of trips they took to the same seaside town. This special screening will show in the new 267-seat cinema at the Museum of the Moving Image at 35th Avenue and 37th Street in Astoria.

Sunday, February 20
6PM
HAHAHA

2010. 115 mins.

About the Director:
Since winning Best New Director at the Asian Pacific Film Festival, Hong Sang-soo has emerged as a leading contemporary Korean director. Greatly influenced by French New Wave cinema, Hong’s work is unique among Korean filmmakers. He skillfully captures simple moments in life and crafts unforgettable scenes of human relationships and interaction. He won international recognition for The Power of Kangwon Province, Virgin Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Woman is the Future of Man, The Turning Gate, and Woman on the Beach.

[zedz]

Just a heads up that the long-OOP R1 disc of Woman Is the Future of Man is currently in stock at Amazon. It's here. MSRP, unfortunately.

[colinr0380]

Night and Day now released on US DVD. Only a trailer as an extra sadly, but at least the film is available!

[Jazzkammer]

Night and Day now released on US DVD. Only a trailer as an extra sadly, but at least the film is available!

I just watched the dvd this morning - it looks and sounds great. This is my third Hong Sangsoo film, and I'm realizing that the cliches used to describe his films are actually true. Every single film he makes is basically the same thing over and over again - and they are all clearly autobiographical. That's okay, though - Sangsoo figured out what he's good at, and he's perfecting his craft. I enjoy his films immensely.

[Michael Kerpan]

Not sure which other HSS films you have seen -- but I've seen them all and don't really see them as all "telling the same story". They share the same overall milieu (usually), but tend to have fairly distinctive differences in overall "feel".

[Jazzkammer]

Not sure which other HSS films you have seen -- but I've seen them all and don't really see them as all "telling the same story". They share the same overall milieu (usually), but tend to have fairly distinctive differences in overall "feel".

The two other HSS films I have seen are The Day A Pig Fell Into the Well and Woman is the Future of Man. I completely agree, each of those films do have distinctive differences, that are just as significant as the commonalities amongst them. The particularities of his movies are what makes each film stand on its own - but, like the body of work of any strong auteur, the cumulative effect of his output becomes greater than the sum of its individual parts (movies).

[Michael Kerpan]

I would say Pig is HSS's "least typical" film. It has a much darker mood than any of the subsequent films (so far).

[colinr0380]

A nice review of the DVD of Night and Day at Digital Fix

[rockysds]

"Visitors" with Hong's half-hour "Lost in the Mountains" has just become available again at YesAsia, priced at $14.99 .
Also "Like You Know it All" is only $9.99.

[Peacock]

Visitors is worth getting for Lav Diaz's Butterflies Have no Memories (both cuts) alone which is probably my favourite film of the 00s (although it's the only one of his films I've seen so maybe it might get toppled!)

Seriously run don't walk, Korean dvds go out of print so fast, especially on yesasia.

[AlexHansen]

The longer cut of Butterflies is on the disc as well? Very good to know as I probably would have dawdled on picking it up.