The Day He Arrives (2011)

Sub-Genres - Comedy of Manners, Psychological Drama  |   Release Date - Apr 20, 2012 (USA - Limited)  |   Run Time - 79 min.  |   Countries - Korea, South  |   MPAA Rating - NR
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Synopsis by Mark Deming

A filmmaker who wants to make some changes in his life finds his days are developing a troubling similarity in this offbeat comedy-drama from South Korean writer and director Hong Sang-soo. Yoo Seong-jun (Yu Jun-sang) is a filmmaker whose critical reputation far outweighs his commercial success, and he's taking a break from his work as he plots his next move. Seong-jun travels to Seoul to visit an old friend, and happens to bump into an actress he once worked with. When Seong-jun's friend fails to show up, the filmmaker sets out on a pub crawl with a handful of film students, and winds up sloppy drunk at the doorstep of his ex-girlfriend Kyung-jin (Kim Bok-yung). The next night, Seong-jun finally meets up with his friend Young-ho (Kim Sang-joong), and once again the director ends up drunk, with his attentions divided between Boram (Song Sun-mi), an attractive academic, and Yejeon (also played by Kim Bok-yung), who owns the bar he's begun to frequent and looks strikingly like his former girlfriend. Seong-jun's second night in town ends in a manner much like the first, and when fate takes him back to the same bar for a third night, it's hard to tell if he's simply reliving the same day over and over or if he was wrong when he dismissed the power of coincidence. Book Chon Bang Hyang (aka The Day He Arrives) received its world premiere at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival, where it was screened as part of the "Un Certain Regard" program.

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Keywords

actor, drunk, ex-girlfriend, filmmaker, vacation