Hong Sangsoo

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Peacock
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Re: Hong Sangsoo

#101 Post by Peacock » Sat Feb 18, 2012 2:43 pm

AlexHansen wrote: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.
Yes, in the special features section (which is hard to find with the Korean menu!)

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zedz
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Re: Hong Sangsoo

#102 Post by zedz » Sun Feb 19, 2012 4:57 pm

And Like You Know It All was previously OOP as well, so snap it up. It's probably my favourite of his last half dozen or so features.

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repeat
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Re: Hong Sangsoo

#103 Post by repeat » Mon Jun 11, 2012 1:12 pm

Posted this in the bargain thread already, but: the MK2 edition of Tale of Cinema is on sale at fnac - to my knowledge both this and the Korean disc are OOP so Hong fans might want to snap it up. Only French subtitles, but fansubs are available

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Re: Hong Sangsoo

#104 Post by Applesauce » Wed Sep 19, 2012 12:52 am

Hong is at the Korea Society tonight to celebrate MoMA's "Yeonghwa: Korean Film Today"and will give "special remarks" along with director Lee Sang-cheol (who I'm not familiar with) and curator Chang Jae Lee.


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Re: Hong Sangsoo

#106 Post by Applesauce » Sun Mar 31, 2013 2:43 pm

Fifteen-film retrospective of Hong's works at BAFICI in Buenos Aires next month, including his newest, Nobody's Daughter Haewon. It seems Hong will also be there to discuss his work with Sergio Wolf.

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Michael Kerpan
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Re: Hong Sangsoo

#107 Post by Michael Kerpan » Mon Apr 01, 2013 12:43 pm

Looking forward to a report on Hong's new film.

yoshimori
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Re: Hong Sangsoo

#108 Post by yoshimori » Tue Apr 09, 2013 1:51 pm

Michael Kerpan wrote:Looking forward to a report on Hong's new film.
If you mean Nobody's Daughter Haewon, saw it in Hong Kong at the festival. Lackluster, both re substance and form.

Here's the HR opening graph, fwiw:

"South Korean filmmaker Hong Sang-soo's offbeat whimsy keeps getting him into festivals, while he takes another step away from the arthouse mainstream with Nobody’s Daughter Haewon. This farcical treatment of a pretty girl’s clandestine affair with her married teacher and slide into alcoholism is poised somewhere between mild comedy and dream, and recaps Hong’s preferred themes. As in In Another Country and Hahaha, it is full of film world denizens (here they are students and teachers at a film school) who spend a good deal of screen time knocking back the rice wine. It’s probably unwise to try to read too much into the film’s very simple narrative and faux-naïve style, though these are the things that give it an undeniable backhand charm. Still it seems even more light-weight than his other recent work."

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repeat
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Re: Hong Sangsoo

#109 Post by repeat » Tue Apr 09, 2013 4:59 pm

Deborah Young wrote:even more light-weight than his other recent work
Hmm - this is really becoming received opinion lately, isn't it? Haven't seen all the recent ones yet myself, but something about this apparent critical backlash strikes me as a bit funny.

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knives
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Re: Hong Sangsoo

#110 Post by knives » Tue Apr 09, 2013 5:12 pm

Critical work right now in general seems to think variety as a good quality so somebody like Hong who plays in one sandbox is naturally going to get picked on after awhile especially since that sandbox is not particularly flashy.

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Re: Hong Sangsoo

#111 Post by Michael Kerpan » Tue Apr 09, 2013 9:52 pm

I've liked all the "too lightweight" HSS films up to now. I suspect I'll like the new one too.

I think that simply not being serious enough is viewed as problematic -- Kiarostami's rather atypical Like Someone in Love has had a fair number of brickbats flung at it.

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knives
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Re: Hong Sangsoo

#112 Post by knives » Tue Apr 09, 2013 10:03 pm

That's probably it too, but even something like Kiarostami's film wasn't so picked on. This seems closer to what Wes Anderson and the Aki Kaurismaki get which is equally absurd in those cases.

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Michael Kerpan
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Re: Hong Sangsoo

#113 Post by Michael Kerpan » Tue Apr 09, 2013 10:04 pm

knives wrote:That's probably it too, but even something like Kiarostami's film wasn't so picked on. This seems closer to what Wes Anderson and the Aki Kaurismaki get which is equally absurd in those cases.
Well, for what it's worth I love all these folks' recent films. I guest my taste in films is too frivolous. ;-}

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knives
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Re: Hong Sangsoo

#114 Post by knives » Tue Apr 09, 2013 10:06 pm

Oh, mine too. I'm deliberately trying to look at people whose recent work I love, but the establishment seems to have lost a love for.

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Re: Hong Sangsoo

#115 Post by yoshimori » Wed Apr 10, 2013 12:47 am

repeat wrote:
Deborah Young wrote:even more light-weight than his other recent work
Hmm - this is really becoming received opinion lately, isn't it? Haven't seen all the recent ones yet myself, but something about this apparent critical backlash strikes me as a bit funny.
Maybe (re the critical backlash theory). But maybe, too, Ms Young is right. I would like to believe that I'd love a Oh-Soojung or Tale of Cinema or Power of the Kangwon Province or even a Like You Know It All from Hong at any point in his career. But the recent works ("Visitors", "Lost in the Mountains", Oki's Movie, and especially The Day He Arrives and In Another Country) all seem, well, dashed-off, lacking some kind of commitment, lightweight. Nobody's Daughter Haewon as much if not necessarily moreso.

Maybe y'all'll love it.

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zedz
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Re: Hong Sangsoo

#116 Post by zedz » Wed Apr 10, 2013 1:00 am

Huh? Isn't 'Lost in the Mountains' Hong's segment of Visitors? They're not separate films (maybe that's why you found them so samey!) Personally, I thought Like You Know It All, The Day He Arrives and In Another Country were the strongest films he'd done in a while, so I can't really buy into any decline conspiracy.

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Re: Hong Sangsoo

#117 Post by yoshimori » Wed Apr 10, 2013 10:32 am

Isn't 'Lost in the Mountains' Hong's segment of Visitors? They're not separate films
Ha! Good reading on your part and sloppy proofing on mine. Meant to write: Visitors' "Lost in the Mountains". Thanks. And once was enough - though I've had to see it at least three times.
maybe that's why you found them so samey!
I'm assuming you meant this as a joke, but, just so as not to be saddled with an opinion not my own, my issue with the more recent Hong is not that he's repeating himself. I don't think I implied that. Hong's repetition doesn't bother me - my not laughing or being otherwise particularly engaged in the onscreen happenings does.

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zedz
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Re: Hong Sangsoo

#118 Post by zedz » Wed Apr 10, 2013 3:40 pm

Yeah, 'samey' was just a joke about the mistaken identity of those two particular films. And I've had the same diminished response to Hong's films (though I've never found any of them less than enjoyable), it's just that for me it was around the time of Woman on the Beach and Tale of Cinema.

If anybody here hasn't seen his first three films, run don't walk. The Day a Pig Fell into the Well is quite different from anything else he's done and is one hell of a first film, and Kangwon Province and Virgin Stripped Bare are utter masterpieces. He's been playing intriguing games ever since with the bold structural innovations of those films, but he's never bettered them. Kangwon Province has a lot more dramatic weight than any of his later films (primarily because most of those films are about things other than 'dramatic weight'), and Virgin Stripped Bare is, I think, his funniest film by far (while still being rather dark and psychologically penetrating).

Much as I've enjoyed following his subsequent career, Hong has never again come close to the level of ambition and innovation of those two films.

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Re: Hong Sangsoo

#119 Post by Michael Kerpan » Wed Apr 10, 2013 4:17 pm

Virgin Stripped Bare is my favorite Hong film -- and yet I've never been able to re-watch it again following the suicide of the lead actress. ;~{

Has any edition of Pig had corrected subtitles? All the versions I know of featuredd often disastrously incomprehensible translations.

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zeroism
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Re: Hong Sangsoo

#120 Post by zeroism » Wed Apr 10, 2013 4:28 pm

Michael Kerpan wrote:Has any edition of Pig had corrected subtitles? All the versions I know of featuredd often disastrously incomprehensible translations.
No DVD that I know of, but the Korean Film Archive's upload of the film on Youtube has drastically improved subtitles.

artfilmfan
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Re: Hong Sangsoo

#121 Post by artfilmfan » Wed Apr 10, 2013 7:18 pm

zedz wrote: ... And I've had the same diminished response to Hong's films (though I've never found any of them less than enjoyable), it's just that for me it was around the time of Woman on the Beach and Tale of Cinema.

If anybody here hasn't seen his first three films, run don't walk. The Day a Pig Fell into the Well is quite different from anything else he's done and is one hell of a first film, and Kangwon Province and Virgin Stripped Bare are utter masterpieces. He's been playing intriguing games ever since with the bold structural innovations of those films, but he's never bettered them. Kangwon Province has a lot more dramatic weight than any of his later films (primarily because most of those films are about things other than 'dramatic weight'), and Virgin Stripped Bare is, I think, his funniest film by far (while still being rather dark and psychologically penetrating).

Much as I've enjoyed following his subsequent career, Hong has never again come close to the level of ambition and innovation of those two films.
That's how I also feel about Hong's films. I thought the first three films were excellent. Kangwon Province is my favorite of his films. I thought Turning Gate is quite good. The decline in my interest in his films occurred around the time of Tale of Cinema and Woman on the Beach as well.

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Michael Kerpan
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Re: Hong Sangsoo

#122 Post by Michael Kerpan » Wed Apr 10, 2013 10:20 pm

On the other hand, Woman om the Beach is more or less tied with Virgin for my top Hong spot -- and I think Tale of Cinema was wonderful.

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repeat
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Re: Hong Sangsoo

#123 Post by repeat » Thu Apr 11, 2013 2:07 am

The first three are still buried in my kevyip so I'm not even really qualified to talk about his oeuvre in general, but on the other hand maybe that allows me to view the recent ones more favorably: my favorite up to now is Tale of Cinema, and I don't see that big a difference between that and the recent ones (save for a certain poignancy that's missing in the later films). This cooling-down of critical opinion probably has to do with comparison with the first three films, and I'm not sure if that's fair towards the director - he did those already, and he's doing something else now. In fact I get the impression he's deliberately banalising his subject matter to direct attention to form.

Having said that, I too have the same experience of diminished response to the recent work (esp. Hahaha), but I think it's just my personal preference for darker and more poignant stories, not a fault in the films per se. I'm really going to move the first three up on my watchlist now!

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zedz
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Re: Hong Sangsoo

#124 Post by zedz » Thu Apr 11, 2013 4:34 pm

repeat wrote:This cooling-down of critical opinion probably has to do with comparison with the first three films, and I'm not sure if that's fair towards the director - he did those already, and he's doing something else now. In fact I get the impression he's deliberately banalising his subject matter to direct attention to form.
I sort of agree with what you're saying - a lot of what he's doing in his recent work is about playing with subtleties of form, but when you see Virgin Stripped Bare in particular, you'll realize that he started out even more preoccupied with formal play. It's dazzling, and he was already a complete master of it. He couldn't have directed more attention to form if he was sitting next to you in the cinema elbowing you in the ribs and saying "See?! See what I did there?"

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Dadapass
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Re: Hong Sangsoo

#125 Post by Dadapass » Fri Apr 12, 2013 12:05 am

Has anyone tried the Asian Crush DVDs of HaHaHa, Oki's Movie, and/or Virgin Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors? They are also available on Amazon Instant.

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