IN SAYING
EVERYTHING ABOUT A MOVIE?
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IN SAYING EVERYTHING ABOUT A MOVIE? |
| HAHAHA (director/writer: Hong Sang-soo; cinematographer: Park Hong-yeol; editor: Hahm Sung-won; music: Jeong Yong-jin; cast: Moon Sori (Seongwook Wang, Female Tour Guide), Sang-kyung Kim (Jo Moon-kyeong), Yeo-jeong Yoon (Moon-kyeong's mother), Jun-Sang Yu (Jong-sik Bang), Ju-bong Gi (Tong-yeong), Kang-woo Kim (Kang Jeong-ho), Min-sun Kim (No Jeong-hwa), Jun-Sang Yu (Bang Joong-sik), Ji-won Ye (Ahn Yeon-joo); Runtime: 114; MPAA Rating: NR; producer: Kim Kyoung-hee; Les Acacias; 2010-South Korea-in Korean with English subtitles) |
| "A quirky
indie film on the meaning of life
and the travails of finding
romance in the modern world,
especially when not sober."
Reviewed
by Dennis Schwartz The
title translates in English to mean summer. Prolific
Korean director Hong Sang-soo ("Woman on the
Beach"/"Virgin Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors"/"Tale
of Cinema") films a comedy that blends together
drunkenness with juvenile notions about romance and a
touch of bad poetry. The humor never came across,
which could mean I missed something about a foreign
culture I don't know or it just wasn't funny because
the story line was so boozy. In any case, I just
couldn't get into the film and found myself hoping it
would soon end so I would no longer be in the company
of those that I found so wanting. Seoul-based
young bachelor fired professor and aspiring movie
director Jo Moon-kyeong (Sang-kyung
Kim) is visiting his divorced
restaurant owner mom (Yeo-jeong
Yoon) during the
summer in the seaside small town of Tongyeong and
runs into his Seoul residing movie critic pal
who is married, Jong-sik Bang (Jun-Sang
Yu), and is vacationing there with a charming
girlfriend (Min-sun Kim). The movie
director falls in love with the attractive but flighty
Seongwook Wang
(Moon
Sori), a waitress in mom's
restaurant who moonlights as a culture
tour guide. The
unhappy movie director plans to immigrate
to Canada and run one of his aunt's photo
instant stores, and asks Seongwook
to join him there,
as she makes him feel good by telling him
he gives her good sex. The
movie director and movie critic get drunk
as they converse about their past, and
through flashbacks we see earlier events
in their life that are shown as a series
of vignettes. It results in a quirky indie
film on the meaning of life and the
travails of finding romance in the modern
world, especially when not sober. It says
such heady things as 'you only see as much
as you know,' as the men converse and
drink heavily at an outdoors bar that
overlooks the picturesque
harbor. My
problem is I never could connect with this rambling
and muddled mildly diverting pic and felt lost or not
caring to get what was so funny or enlightening. For what it's worth, it won the "Un Certain Regard" prize at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival. REVIEWED ON 1/20/2013 GRADE: C+ Dennis Schwartz: "Ozus' World Movie Reviews" © ALL RIGHTS RESERVED DENNIS SCHWARTZ |