On the Beach at Night Alone

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Rotten Tomatoes® Score
92% 67%

In Theaters: November 17, 2017 (limited)

1h 41m | Drama

In the opening scenes of this bittersweet post-break-up film, we find Young-hee visiting a friend in Hamburg and nursing a broken heart. With all the enthusiasm of the romantic drifter abroad, Young-hee (The Handmaiden's Kim Minhee) ponders relocating there, but life in the German city is also alienating, resulting in much lost-in-translation humour.

Meanwhile, back in Gangneung and with the soju flowing, Young-hee questions the social attitudes that have punished her relationship with a married film director.

Director Hong Sangsoo is at his most Rohmer-esque here, employing a lightness of touch and compassionate curiosity about Young-hee's motivations, making the film's central questions on love and its aftermath more resonant.

Kim Minhee, who won the Best Actress Golden Bear in Berlin, exudes an impressive emotional rawness, demonstrated in a particularly poignant stolen moment, as Young-hee sings a song to herself, whilst smoking outside a bar, all alone.