A Splendid Outing

One of the decade’s great enigmas. A successful executive, plagued by strange visions and intimations of a buried past, leaves the city for the coast—only to be abducted and taken to a remote island, where a man insists she is his vanished wife. Shot by legendary cinematographer Jung Il‑sung, the film unfolds in a fractured, dreamlike flow, reality and hallucination spliced together without signposts, its dissonant music and distorted imagery tracking the heroine’s psychological unraveling. Kim Soo‑yong is said to have chosen the innocuous title to ease the film past the censors while smuggling in a darker social portrait; contemporary critics saw in it an unflattering reflection of 1970s Korea. Regarded as one of the most challenging Korean films of its year, it also proved a word‑of‑mouth success. Anchored by an extraordinary performance from Yun Jeong‑hee, star of Kim’s Night Journey and later acclaimed internationally for Lee Chang‑dong’s Poetry, A Splendid Outing culminates in an ending that pointedly refuses to resolve. Digitally mastered in 2023 by the Korean Film Archive.