75
Accessible, and often funny.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
70
Dry, wry, difficult-to-capture comedy.
70
Albeit not as textured as Hong's past few films, Woman on the Beach is no less engrossing--a rueful tale of karmic irony, self-deceived desire, squandered second chances, and unforeseen abandonment.
63
New York Daily News by Jack Mathews
The two-part film focuses on Jung-rae's one-night stand with the protégée of a colleague he invites to his seaside retreat, and then with a second woman who merely reminds him how much he liked the first. The scenery's great and the performances adequate, but wake me when it's over.
70
The New York Times by Manohla Dargis
Wry and tender and delicately melancholic, Woman on the Beach shows a newly confident filmmaker again working near the top of his form after the disappointing “Tale of Cinema” (2005), even if the new film unfolds straightforwardly, with none of the narrative ellipses and puzzle-box complications, the flashbacks and parallel story lines of his earlier work.
91
Woman On The Beach is a stripped-down, witty explication of how we all get stymied by the impulses and options inherent in the simple act of living.
60
The Hollywood Reporter by Richard James Havis
The film lacks Hong's usual insight and narrative innovation. It occasionally even feels self-indulgent.
80
A wonderful, serious-minded romantic comedy-drama.
75
A South Korean romantic comedy by Hong Sang-soo, who has been likened in style to France's venerable Eric Rohmer.