On the Beach at Night Alone


On the Beach at Night Alone is a 2017 South Korean drama film written, produced, and directed by Hong Sang-soo. It was selected to compete for the Golden Bear in the main competition section of the 67th Berlin International Film Festival, where Kim Min-hee won the Silver Bear for Best Actress award.

Premise

Young-hee is an actress who has left Seoul after a highly publicized affair with a married man, who is also a colleague and a well-known film director. The first part of the film is set in Hamburg, where Young-hee stays with her older friend Jee-young and the latter's English-speaking German artist acquaintances. The two walk around a street market, a park, and a bookstore. Jeeyoung says she has no more desire for men, and Younghee encourages her to play around. Later, Young-hee and her friends visit the beach. The camera pans to Young-hee's friends, and then back to Young-hee being carried off over the shoulder of a man.
The film's second part begins with Young-hee sitting in a movie theater, lingering for a while after the lights come up and the theater empties. It is winter; Young-hee has returned to Gangneung, Korea, and reunites with several old friends over dinner and drinks. She falls asleep on the beach, and dreams of having dinner with the director, where she both confronts and reunites with him.

Cast

Reception

Critical response

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 92% based on 52 reviews, with an average rating of 7.9/10. The website's critics consensus reads, "On the Beach at Night Alone finds writer-director Sang-soo Hong working in a more personal vein—without losing the singular sensibilities that have informed much of his acclaimed earlier work. Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 80 out of 100, based on 14 critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews.