South Korean auteur Hong Sang-Soo's latest feature delivers yet another casual meditation on life, love, family and aging as two stories intersect at a quiet hotel on next to the Han River. In the first, a poet past his prime, Young-hwan, believes that he is heading towards an untimely death and has invited his estranged adult sons to meet him at the hotel. In the second, a young women, Sang-hee, has retreated to the solitude of the hotel to mend a broken heart with a close friend. Mired in their own minor tragedies, their paths cross and cross again but not without Hong's signature awkwardness and humor that brilliantly underscores the charm and absurdity of humans as social beings.
Director Biography
South Korean writer and director Hong Sang-Soo studied film at California College of Arts and Crafts and the Chicago Art Institute. At the age of 35, he made his directorial debut with The Day A Pig Fell Into The Well (96). Hotel By the River is his 23rd feature film.
Press
"[O]ne of Hong’s most unexpectedly poignant works, self-reflexive in a way that feels searching rather than rote" - New York Times