Hong Sang-soo's Korean Rohmer-esque RIGHT NOW, WRONG THEN opens in theaters

I've not seen nearly all of the 21 films of Hong Sang-soo but of those I have (including The Day He Arrives, Like You Know It All, Oki's Movie, Night and Day, Woman Is the Future of Man, Woman on the Beach and his latest RIGHT NOW, WRONG THEN among them), certain themes and characteristics emerge. Hong often tells stories with a Korean art film director as a leading character. (Why not? He certainly knows those ropes.) If not a director, he'll give us an artist, or sometimes both. Furthermore, this director (along with most other characters in the film) drinks a lot and womanizes whenever possible. Travel is often present --from one city to another or one country to another -- as is the sense of the past nurturing and/or hobbling the present, as well as a keen interest in responsibility and the acceptance or rejection of same.

All of this has conspired over time to make me think of Eric Rohmer when I confront the films of Mr. Hong (shown at left). And I do mean this as a compliment. Both men's film are art-house to a fault, dialog heavy and often deal in similar themes. (Hong's movies are generally lengthier than Rohmer's, so be patient.)  His latest two-hour frolic splits itself almost exactly in two, with the first hour showing us his alter ego engaging in the usual come-on to attractive women (though he does try to resist, boy, is it difficult!), drinking, flirting, babbling and generally embarrassing himself rather badly. All this is, as usual, great fun to see this pretentious little twat unmasked and undone. But it is with the second half that Hong burnishes his movie to a gleaming shine.

In both parts our "hero" busies himself with a much younger art student, visiting her workshop and seeing her creations, meeting her friends, and then, the following day, giving his talk at a local screening of one of his films. Yet the first and second sections could hardly be more different and we need to view the former in order to properly appreciate the latter.

That first section is so much like many of the other of Hong's movies that it almost seems as if the filmmaker has finally grown fed up with this typical behavior and wants to show us might occur if his characters, particularly the art-film director, were more honest. What a difference this makes.

Sure we can still imbibe and grow drunk, but even here, the results differ when we're less self-involved and more other-centered. The change of behavior even stretches into the scene at the movie theater and the relationship with the film festival curator and his assistant.

To fully appreciate Hong and Rohmer, you must be also appreciate the ability of dialog to create character, and care about and understand character enough to let it control a film. Event is minimal, and yet, because of the depth of character, event, even a small one, in a sense becomes all.

Mr Hong finds humor, sadness and surprise -- even perchance growth -- in his characters, and this makes his forays into travel, drink, sex and art so enticing and so much fun. At least I find them so. I hope you will, too.

Meanwhile, Right Now, Wrong Then -- from Grasshopper Film and running opens tomorrow, Friday, June 24, in New York at the new Metrograph and at the Film Society of Lincoln Center, and in Los Angeles on June 25, at the Acropolis Cinema. In the weeks following, it will hit another six cities. Click here then scroll way down and click on Where to Watch to see all currently scheduled playdates, cities and theaters.

Hong Sang-soo--back next week with two: OKI'S MOVIE and THE DAY HE ARRIVES

What are South Korean women to do about South Korean men? Leave the country and try a different breed? TrustMovies is asking only because another Hong Sang-soo movie is opening soon -- a pair of them, actually, next week in New York City: OKI'S MOVIE on Monday at the Maysles Cinema and THE DAY HE ARRIVES on Friday at the Lincoln Plaza Cinema -- so in-vogue once again will be scenes of sexual betrayal, lying, cheating and scheming by (usually) film-making assholes combining the egos of mammoths with perhaps the talent of mice (these are the guys) and screaming, sighing, withholding and/or being passively aggressive while putting up with the same-old-same-old (these are the gals, also often filmmakers or students of same).

For those of us who know the new Korea (Southern section) only via its rather amazing movies (everything from ultra-violent crime films and romantic comedies to horror/monster movies and others that are simply uncategorizable), Mr. Hong's oeuvre holds a special place. Watching his men-and-women movies it sometimes seems as though, for Korea, more than any other Asian country, an eastern culture has been whacked headlong by the west, so that anything approaching normal behavior from the old days has been replaced by something new and different. Except that genuine assimilation has yet to take place. Consequently this is no longer east, and it's certainly not west. Instead it is... Korea.

Anyway, this is one westerner's view of Sang-soo (shown at left) and his films, some of which I like more than others but all of which I would rate worth viewing. I mean, look at that twinkly, squared-off face. And those dimples, one a bit heavier than the other. What a little schemer, one thinks! Most of the leading characters in his films -- often film directors and/or teachers -- cannot help but seem, for this viewer, anyway, to be stand-ins for Mr. Hong. Unfair? So, there! This time around, in The Day He Arrives, the filmmaker returns to his old tricks (used most recently in the better and funnier film, Like You Know It All, which was shown as part of the 2010 Film Comment Selects series (click and scroll down for my earlier take on this film).

Here, again, the male characters drink too much (back and back and back they go, to a local bar in which the proprietress absents herself, once her guests start in). But they know they drink too much and even talk about the fact that they know they drink too much. They flirt and fuck and go visit their former trysts (below), just, it seems, to pour a little salt in the wounds (whether hers, or his, it is not always clear).

Then there are the ever-present film students/co-workers/ex-romantic partners. In "Day," three of these students come upon our "hero," and they all go out for a drink, get drunk and then (particularly our guy) are rude to each other.

All this has its charm (sort of) and certainly its humor (a little ugly, a little dark), but it runs the risk of tiring those of us who know Hong's work by being so similar to much else we've seen. Only the photography -- in crisp and beautiful black-and-white -- seems different this time around. However, if The Day He Arrives is your first or maybe even second Hong experience, by all means stick it at the top of your must-see list, for it will seem all the fresher for your inexperience.

OKI'S MOVIE, on the other hand, is something quite "else." (We're back to color, for one thing.) Made up of a quartet of stories (A Day for Chanting, King of Kiss, After the Snow Storm, and Oki's Story) featuring the same characters played by the same actors, the movie begins as a typical "from-the-male-point-of-view" slice of Sangsoo but then slowly, with each new story, becomes more and more woman-centered until it's final segment, in which Oki tells/shows us two days she spent in the same location, one with each man who was currently courting her.

By the time we get to this fourth and final chapter however, we've already seen the other three and so we understand these characters with the kind of rounded perspective that few movies take the trouble to give us. Consequently, it is not so easy to label the men as mere hypocrites and denialists (well, they are -- but so are most of us guys). The women, too, even sweet little Oki, are not above using their significant others (or their would-be significant others) as fodder for their own needs and desires.

Oki's Movie proves to be one of Hong's richest stews, bubbling over with interesting characters -- doing the darndest things -- and ideas about life, love and film that are very much worth a watch. The movie, just 80 minutes long, from FineCut, opens this coming Monday, April 16, for a one-week run in New York City at the Maysles Cinema in Harlem. (Let's hope that there will be more playdates around the country -- or at least a DVD release.) The Day He Arrives, 79 minutes, via Cinema Guild, opens this coming Friday, April 20, in New York City at the Lincoln Plaza Cinema. Click here to see all currently scheduled upcoming playdates, cities and theatres (and let's hope that there will soon be more than appear there just now....)