Hill of Freedom

That may sound like some terribly serious arthouse navel-gazing, but ultimately Hill of Freedom is surprisingly satisfying in its sheer - albeit abjectly disjointed - fish-out-of-water ordinariness.

The ingenuity of the movie's structure is stimulating and delightful...

With modest means and a limited field of action, Hong achieves a complexity akin to the grand historical meditations of Alain Resnais; steering clear of explicit politics, he conjures revealing attitudes through reverberant-and often comical-details.

It isn't without its pleasures and occasional insights, but ultimately little more than an excuse for Hong to try out a new stylistic color in his auteurist palette.

The prolific South Korean writer-director's funniest work ...

The mismatched narrative suggests two possible endings for the film, and where Hong's characters usually lose out in playing the field, for once both conclusions seem equally affirming.

In today's cinema, no one makes films as formulaic and at the same time as unpredictable as Hong's; no other director expresses his radicality in such a discreet way.

Without reaching the perfection of the beautiful Oki's Movie, Hong always delivers; 66 minutes of pleasure guaranteed. [Full review in Spanish]

Hong is an expertly unsparing diagnostician of the anti-revels he can’t tear himself away from...

Hong Sang-soo at his most playful and accessible...