Film review: Hang Sang-soo's Hill of Freedom

to the films of Hong Sang-soo, it's tempting to assume that if you've seen one, you've seen them all. Through narrative tricks that play on memory and perception, the South Korean auteur has been creating simply staged yet intellectually satisfying dramas in which characters sit, drink and debate relationship issues.

In his 16th feature Hill of Freedom — the writer-director's shortest to date, at 66 minutes — Hong makes efficient use of one of the basic storytelling conceits in the book: A slight touch of suspense is formed when a woman accidentally scatters a stash of undated letters from a lover she previously rejected, before reading them in their fragmented and chronologically scrambled form.

When a Japanese man, Mori, (Ryo Kase) returns to a Seoul neighbourhood to look for Kwon (Seo Young-hwa), the woman who had rejected him two years earlier, he fails to find her at her apartment and the language school where they first met. With a broken heart and time to kill, the disappointed visitor is soon embraced by the intrusively friendly people around him.

Among them is Young-sun (Moon So-ri), the former actress who runs the titular café — and a source of intrigue for Kwon as she reads on to see if she has slept with Mori. Also taking up his attention are the guesthouse's elderly proprietor (Yoon Yeo-jeong) and her debt-ridden nephew Sang-won (Kim Eui-sung), whose aggressive ways with women contrasts with Mori's quiet pining.