A filmmaking student doesn’t know herself except through the eyes of three men who have had an on-off intimate relationship with her, as Hong gives us a sly film bounded by the circularities and repetitions of plotting and dialogue.
Review #3,014
Dir. Hong Sang-soo
2013 | South Korea | Drama, Comedy | 88min | 1.85:1 | Korean
PG (passed clean)
Cast: Jung Yu-mi, Lee Sun-kyun, Kim Sang-joong, Jung Jae-young, Lee Min-woo
Plot: A young woman returning to her old school to visit her professor also runs into her old boyfriend and her senior, each of whom has a past with her.
Awards: Won Best Director & Nom. for Golden Leopard (Locarno)
International Sales: Finecut
Accessibility Index
Subject Matter: Moderate – Self-Identity; In the Eyes of Others; Friends & Lovers
Narrative Style: Slightly Complex
Pace: Slightly Slow
Audience Type: Slightly Arthouse
Viewed: Oldham Theatre (as part of Twin Tales: Hong Sang-soo x Eric Rohmer)
Spoilers: No
I’ve seen so many Hong Sang-soo films that at this juncture, everything feels like a blur. Don’t ask me about the plot or characters from any of his works, as it is so easy to get mixed up.
Sometimes, I don’t even remember how I felt watching a particular work, which is why I try to review every Hong film that I see, as looking back at my writings, I might find those elusive traces of how I felt at the time.
Our Sunhi is a sly film that works to some extent because of its circularities and repetitions, and in many ways, it is one of Hong’s easiest-to-remember films.
It’s not an exceptional entry, but the director is in both playful and serious mode here as he dissects the titular Sunhi through the eyes of three men.
Played by Jung Yu-mi, known more for her roles in Silenced (2011) and Train to Busan (2016), Sunhi is a 30-something filmmaking student hoping to do graduate studies in the States.
“She’s reserved, has artistic sense, and is smart.”
She asks for a reference letter from her professor. That’s one man. She would chance upon an ex-lover when having chicken and beer at a café. That’s another. The third man would be her senior.
All three have had an on-off intimate relationship with her, ranging from infatuation to deeper romance. All see her in a similar way, using certain recurring adjectives to describe her ‘oddness’, yet also recognising her talents.
With that, Hong fashions Our Sunhi into something like a triptych mirror—fragmented but producing the same image, albeit in slightly different angles.
But the subject herself ironically has little to grasp in terms of self-identity, and it is this ‘emptiness’, of feeling unable to define herself but only in relation to how others see her, that proves concerning.
I want to encourage Sunhi, yet I’m also skeptical, but most of all, I’m just curious as to what kind of films she hopes to make when she doesn’t even understand herself.
Grade: B
Trailer:
Music:
Eternality Tan 