Essentially another series of conversations and observations yet again, but just as fascinating as every Hong film. Initially I wanted to put together more expansively some of my interpretations and views on Hong Sang-soo and his works in general, but figured they would be better spent on my exclusive favourites: Right Now Wrong Then, Oh! Soo-jung, Night & Day, Hill of Freedom and The Day He Arrives (not that many favourites for such a singular auteur).

The Woman Who Ran is noticeably weaker (than his best pieces) when dialogues and characters are concerned, which is, paradoxically its strength as well; alluding to the title, everything is on the run, not just the woman, the strings of exchanged words are merely desperate attempts at saturating time. Unlike narratively strong works such as On the Beach at Night Alone, this film's mundane conversations allows for a spontaneous, almost imperceptible drift into a sense of ephemera. Despite the film being dominated by long takes, it is seldom meditative; rather this fleeting stagnancy (no oxymoron intended, I do not know how to describe it in another way) becomes the spotlight of a makeshift existence, whether bereft of any amazement or not remains to be seen.

The cast is mostly Hong regulars, but they bear little to no resemblances to their previous roles, notwithstanding the thematic unity; every Hong film is basically adulterous middle-aged men (predominantly film directors) and mentally instable young women (writers and such), but no two films are ever the same. Loops upon loops are laid out in a way that entropic manipulations by randomness sneak on the final canvas unnoticed, or rather, as barely noticeable granularities; these continuities must be overridden by the entropy in order to continually scour out the true potential of his films; such cinematic indeterminacy and/or idealistic randomness is mainly what makes Hong Sang-soo endlessly interesting. Roll the cards, motherfuckers!