Hong Sang-Soo reminds me a lot of Eric Rohmer, which seems to be a comparison many have made before. But I would definitely rank him quite below Rohmer. I've seen four films by Hong now. I liked the first one I saw, Woman Is the Future of Man, a lot, but the other two, besides the one about which I'm currently writing, I only barely recall. Woman on the Beach seems far too similar to Woman Is the Future of Man for me to like it a lot. I didn't hate it, by any means, though I did eventually grow tired of it. I liked the initial conflict, where a man brings along a woman whom he thinks of as his girlfriend on a trip with a film director friend of his. The director is kind of a jerk, and the girl is immediately attracted to him either that, or she is so bothered by the meek guy that she just wants to spurn him. Later on, she discovers that the director's jerkiness is a pretty clear character trait. Well, duh. Much as I remember from Woman Is the Future of Man, Hong's major insight seems to be that men (particularly film directors) are jerks, and that women like jerks, but also think they can change them. It's a pretty trite observation, really, and, in the end, kind of hateful toward both sexes. It doesn't help that the woman becomes a completely jealous shrew. If I'm remembering correctly, I liked the woman of Woman Is the Future of Man much better. She seemed, in the end, better and stronger than the men in her life.
Review of Woman on the Beach
