Like You Know It All

Though again reflecting both Hong’s liking for partly repetitive two-part narratives and his interest in the psychological and ethical shortcomings of the modern Korean male, this modest study of a middle-aged art-movie director (Kim) is generally lighter in tone than most of his work to date. Indeed, the first half, set in a small town where the protagonist is on a festival jury, includes spot-on gags on the weird culture of film festivals, before shifting into slightly darker territory when assessing the director’s knack for saying and doing the wrong thing while drunk. The second half, set some months later in a university town where he’s giving a master class, negotiates an even more precarious balancing act as the hero’s experiences with an old flame now married to his former mentor come to highlight, to delicious serio-comic effect, his self-deluding emotional immaturity.