Filmmaker Hong Sansgoo’s fourth feature is a playful and profound meditation on love, fate, and how we try to make sense of reality’s essential ambiguity. After an actor is passed over for a part, he leaves Seoul to visit an old friend and former classmate; the friend recounts to him the legend of the Buddhist temple Turning Gate, which then, as if by magic, initiates a series of romantic dalliances. First, a young dance instructor falls head over heels for him, and then a married woman swears she knows him from somewhere. He begins to wonder if this second woman is his soulmate, but eerie coincidences and feelings of déjà vu make his choice between the two women ever more uncertain. (2002, 35mm, Korean with English subtitles, 115 minutes)
This film is part of our Tales of Cinema: The World of Hong Sangsoo series.
With thanks to the Korean Film Archive for the loan of the film print for this screening.