THE WOMAN WHO RAN

2020, 77 minutes, Colour.
Kim Minhee.
Directed by Hong Sangsoo.

Director Hong Sangsoo has won many awards. His films are described as minimalist. He made such films as Woman is the Future of Man (2004).

There is minimalist plot here but some complexities in the characters and their encounters.

A middle-aged divorcee is seen tending her garden, a friend who is doing a job interview visiting, then the central character who has a long conversation (comparatively speaking for a short film) with the gardening woman. They have known each other in the past and the conversation leads to reminiscences, especially about the visiting woman’s husband, they never having been apart for five years but his having gone on a business trip.

The second part is another conversation with the visiting woman, further discussions about the past, and the visit of a man who is rejected and labelled as a stalker.

Then there is a third conversation, the visiting woman clashing with the woman she is visiting in her office, and again, suggestions made about relationships in the past. The visiting woman goes to watch a film in the complex, comes out for a cup of something, encounters the husband of the woman she has visited, who specialises in symbolic performances, and then goes back in to watch the film again – scenes of the ocean.

In one sense straightforward with the conversations. In other senses, rather complex with the underlying issues of the women and their conversations.


1. A Korean story? Korean sensibilities? The work of the director, his interest in characters, interactions, women and communication?

2. Locations, the garden, the house and interiors, apartments, the streets, the office, cafe, the cinema? The atmosphere? The musical score?

3. The garden, the elderly lady, neat, her visitor going for the interview, the woman of the title arriving, their talk, friendship, discussion about marriage, five years, never away from her husband until now, the nature of the visit, her cutting her hair, the chatting?

4. The man in the film, their intrusion, the stalker, the director and the past with the woman of the title?

5. The second woman, the conversation, indications of the past, men? The tensions? The arrival of the man and the accusation of his being a stalker?

6. The third woman in the office, her job, being friendly, the rising tensions, husbands, intimations of the past? The woman at the title going into the movie, the images of the sea, her return, meeting the director, the past with him? His attitude? Her returning to see the film, and the image of the sea?