Woman Is the Future of Man (2004)

This is my third Sang Soo Hong flick, and quite probably my last. After A Virgin Stripped Bare..., A Woman on the Beach and now Woman Future, I was amazed by how they are all THE SAME STORY! A movie director (come on, Hong - there are other types of people in the world) has sex with girl(s)(come on, Hong - there are other types of things people do with other people in the world),gets drunk and abusive, making a scene in a restaurant (come on, Hong - there are ways in which people's characters and frustrations can be revealed without going over-the-emotional-top each time)and then,.... Nothing! No end of resolution or point to the film. And unlike other reviewers who found this (and I paraphrase) 'a deft, fragile touch at portraying the inconclusiveness of much of real life', I found it an inevitable corollary of having nothing real to say except what you navel-gazed and fantasized about in your life as a movie director/chaser of women/drunk. In Woman Future, the main character (here, an art professor) meets a new woman with 12 minutes to go in the film, has a form of sex and then says goodbye as she catches a cab. What? No conclusion was reached either here or with respect to his relations with his film director friend or their mutual girlfriend. Even his sex scenes have no development. The couple walk down the hall. Cut. The couple are now naked in bed, thrusting. (come on, Hong - there is such a thing as seduction, and the art of romance). The real clincher for me about the similarity of these 'films' was clicking the 'People who liked this also liked...' section on the IMDb page for this film. There, I found twelve more titles of Hong films, with a capsule plot sketch of each. And they're all the same! Some artist (usually a movie director)has a friend. Their stories get entwined with those of a woman. Again, and again, and again. How does this guy get the $ to do this again and again and again? 3/10

"Woman Is the Future of Man (Yeojaneun namjaui miraeda)" feels like a cheerless Korean spin on "Jules et Jim" crossed with the chauvinism of "Carnal Knowledge". From the discussion in the ladies room after wards, people in the audience weren't falling asleep trying to follow the flash backs vs. dreams vs. fantasies vs. flash forwards vs. the narrative of an obsessive threesome of old friends as much as frustration with the women characters. Either the females were fulfilling every racist stereotype Americans have of "Oriental" women, as seductive passive doormats, or the film is one long drunken male fantasy. The women only got to even show emotions a handful of times.Occasionally the two guy friends weepily confess, through their nonstop talking and drinking reunion, their faults with mea culpas and various self-flagellations about wanting sex "too much", and even admitting that they've mistreated the women they stalk --but that doesn't stop their boorish, insensitive --and worse-- behavior. It is also possible that a lot of the Korean cultural reference points were lost in the subtitle translations. There seems, for example, to be a familiar form of address in Korean as there is in many non-English languages that was clumsily handled in the translation when women despair of being addressed that way by their lovers.Whatever theme writer/director Sang-soo Hong intended to portray about the role of Eros amidst a non-purifying snowy night in the city, all that comes across is that men are schmucks and they deserve what they get.

A classic film that should be seen by everyone. Okay I'm a little biased since I was an extra in the film. You can see my glorious side profile and backside walk behind the two main actors during the airport scene. Director Hong Sang Soo is a genius and this movie is as good if not better than the Turning gate and Oh Soyoung. The ending scene was perfect if you were one of the few that paid attention to the movie. I was amazed by Korean audiences that after seeing the final scene sighed a collective "Huh?" It was of course a failure in Korea because despite some good films coming from that country most Koreans enjoy formulaic sappy love comedies. Let's hope that Hong Sang Soo doesn't take this commercial failure to heart. He is a great director and a true genius.

This was a thoroughly engrossing film. Superb acting, believable characters, and a story that holds your interest. That said, you could dismiss the story as just another slice-of-life piece because it does boil down to a simple tale of two old friends getting together for a visit. Still, we care about what happens to everyone involved.For this viewer, the major failing is that I wanted to see more of everyone's stories. I felt the film finished one story at exactly the right moment with the final scene, but I wanted to hear more about the other stories. I wouldn't have minded more of the well-ended tale, either, but I could accept that any more would require another full movie.