Woman is the Future of Man (여자는 남자의 미래다)

Hong Sang-soo has often been called the South Korean Éric Rohmer, but that does not make his films homages and certainly not copies of the work of one of his idols. Like Rohmer, however, he is fascinated by the way we deceive and contradict ourselves when it comes to matters of the heart and lust. In this capricious melodrama – the very productive director's fifth film – two old school friends, a failed filmmaker and an art teacher – decide to visit an ex-girlfriend. But the trip down memory lane rips open old wounds; the breaking points of their love triangle come to life in flashbacks. In an always discreetly elegant mise-en-scène, Hong Sang-soo observes with understated humour the frolicking and bickering of ordinary people struggling with the fragility and elusiveness of love.

"Woman is the Future of Man is doomed to infuriate, and its scrutiny of disconnected beings, filmed in long, hold-your-breath takes, might feel like old hat to anyone reared on Antonioni, yet Hong has a grace and stealth of his own, and his scenes tend to tilt in directions that few of us would dare to predict." - The New Yorker