Woman on the Beach

After a creatively blocked filmmaker Jung-rae (Seung-woo Kim) convinces his friend to join him on a brief holiday to finish a script, he begins an affair with the friend’s girlfriend, Mun-suk (Hyun-jung Go). Customary in Hong’s doubled-narrative structures, the film’s second half inverts this triangle when Jung-rae returns to the beach and meets Sun-hee (Seon-mi Song), a woman who resembles Mun-suk. Woman on the Beach revisits the kind of listless coastal resort town of The Power of Kangwon Province, but now during their wintry offseason, where Hong deftly captures the subtle layers of monotony, humor and sadness that connect Jung-rae’s two trips. A new 4K restoration completed by the Korean Film Archive from the original 35mm negative. An NYFF44 selection. A Grasshopper Film release. 

Watch a special discussion on Hong Sangsoo at our first-ever Members Film Club, plus a never-before-seen archival Q&A of the director discuss Woman on the Beach at the 44th New York Film Festival in 2006. Interested in joining our membership community? Learn more here.

Cinema Guild is making the following Hong Sangsoo titles available to rent on their channel at a discounted price: Grass (2019) $1.99, Hotel by the River (2019) $1.99, The Day After (2018) $0.99, Claire’s Camera (2017) $0.99, On the Beach at Night Alone (2017) $0.99, The Day He Arrives (2011) $0.99.