Tag Archives: Hong Sangsoo

Review: By the Stream

Posted on December 13, 2025 by philipbrasor

It’s such a delight to see Kim Min-hee again in a leading role. Though everyone knows that Kim is filmmaker Hong Sangsoo’s partner in both life and commerce, she’s also one of Korea’s best actors, and since becoming Hong’s most … Continue reading →

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Review: A Traveler’s Needs

Posted on November 1, 2025 by philipbrasor

There’s obviously something about Hong Sangsoo’s methodology that appeals to Isabelle Huppert, because this is the third movie of his that she’s starred in. It may be the free-form way Hong constructs his narrative. Like Mike Leigh, Hong doesn’t start … Continue reading →

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Busan International Film Festival 2025, Sept. 22

Posted on September 22, 2025 by philipbrasor

It struck me yesterday that this may be the first edition of BIFF I’ve attended where there is not one new Hong Sangsoo movie. In fact, usually there’s two. It’s difficult to believe they didn’t invite his newest, What Does … Continue reading →

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Tokyo Filmex 2024

Posted on December 3, 2024 by philipbrasor

I hadn’t been to Filmex since 2015, owing mainly to the fact that for a while after co-founder Shozo Ichiyama resumed his role of chief programmer at the Tokyo International Film Festival, the two events overlapped to a certain extent. … Continue reading →

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Review: Walk Up

Posted on June 28, 2024 by philipbrasor

Hong Sangsoo’s newest Japan theatrical release could have been titled Quitting, just like Zhang Yang’s criminally overlooked 2001 feature about an actor on the verge of actually cracking up. It’s one of the few Hong movies of recent memory where … Continue reading →

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Review: The Novelist’s Film

Posted on June 30, 2023 by philipbrasor

As a formalist, Hong Sangsoo rarely sticks to the same set structure, though, given his stylistic distinctions, many may assume he does. He often plays with time, linearity, and alternate outcomes in order to demonstrate how stories can be told, … Continue reading →

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Best movies 2022

Posted on December 26, 2022 by philipbrasor

Though the pandemic has in no way subsided in Japan—Christmas Eve marked a new one-day record for deaths from COVID—this year I managed to regain the movie-watching pace I enjoyed before 2019, and therefore am resuming the compilation of a … Continue reading →

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