With 25 years of filmmaking experience and 28 feature-length movies under his belt, Hong Sang-soo is one of South Korea's greatest living directors. South Korea puts out incredible films every year, and recent award-winners like Parasite and the Netflix series Squid Game have helped make the country into an international cinema powerhouse. But not every film from South Korea becomes popular globally, and there are directors who aim at a different kind of success: one not bound to box-office numbers or major award show accolades. Enter Hong Sang-soo.

Despite his renown among critics, Sang-soo has been quietly producing great works of cinematic art without breaking into the mainstream — both in his own country and in the West. Even as he has steadily built up his renown in arthouse and independent circles, it seems unlikely that his restrained, undramatic, and deeply personal films will propel him to the stardom of his peers. With this in mind, it's worth putting a spotlight on Sang-soo's brilliant filmography, as well as the directorial quirks that make him such a special artist.

A Long and Prolific Career

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Sponge Entertainment

Hong Sang-soo got his start as a filmmaker studying in the theater department at Chung-Ang University in South Korea. He then moved to the United States and earned his bachelor's and master's degrees from the Califonia College of Arts and Crafts and the School of the Art Institute Chicago, respectively. Though he has worked as a director for 25 years, he did not debut his first feature until he was 36. This first film, The Day a Pig Fell Into the Well, premiered in 1996 and won him a number of awards. From this point on, Sang-soo has never gone more than two years without directing and releasing a film — and in especially fruitful years, he releases two or three.

Sang-soo's impressive output continued even as the COVID-19 pandemic slowed global film production to a near-halt. If anything, he used the conditions brought about by COVID to master the stripped-down production style typical of so many of his works: small casts and crews, long takes, static shots, and scripts that are always in progress. By perfecting his low-budget filmmaking process, Sang-soo has been able to maintain and increase his output even in times of crisis. His unflagging, resourceful spirit means that fans of the director will never have to wait long for his next release.

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Masterpieces of South Korean Cinema

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Jeonwonsa Films

Of Hong Sang-soo's 28 films, there are several that can be considered classics of South Korean cinema. Like Bong Joon-ho (of Parasite fame) and Park Chan-Wook (director of Oldboy), Sang-soo helped to usher in a new age of Korean filmmaking that has exploded in popularity in recent years. Sang-soo's work has not received as much fanfare, but it has won him critical acclaim, with several of his movies appearing on best-of lists and earning awards at film festivals. Today, some of his films can rightly be called South Korean cinematic masterpieces. Two of his greatest recent achievements, Right Now, Wrong Then and On the Beach at Night Alone, show that he has only improved with age. It's exciting to think about what he will accomplish next, and to consider the prospect that his best work may still be ahead of him.

The low cost of his film productions allows him the freedom to experiment without fear of losing money or failing investors. For his idiosyncratic style, he has sometimes been hailed as a "minimal realist" (per The Hollywood Reporter), though he prefers to avoid labeling himself as any one thing. Though not every viewer will appreciate the pared-back, visually static, and sometimes improvisational nature of Sang-soo's films, they remain valuable for their uniqueness — or, put another way, for the escape they provide from big-budget, consumer-oriented cinema.

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No Signs of Slowing Down

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Sponge Entertainment

Hong Sang-soo is now 61 years old, but age has not slowed his output in the least. Per The New York Times, Hong Sang-soo has recently been distinguishing himself with successful festival showings, premiering as many as three films in 2017 at Cannes and the Berlin International Film Festival. In 2022, the veteran filmmaker released two feature-length movies, The Novelist's Film and Walk Up, with the former winning critical praise in spite of its relative lack of originality. The Novelist's Film marks another successful COVID-era production, demonstrating Sang-soo's ability to thrive in the face of restrictions. Walk Up premiered earlier this September at the Toronto International Film Festival, and received similarly modest praise.

Hong Sang-soo has not revealed what projects he is currently working on, if any. If his tireless work ethic is any indication, however, we will likely be hearing from him very soon. Sang-soo has set a pace for himself that seems impossible to follow, yet somehow he has persisted. It may come down to his ability to write and direct only the films that he wants to make — a privilege not shared by most directors — that keeps him from burning out. Whatever it is, we viewers reap the benefits of this South Korean master's refusal to slow down. There's no better time than now to immerse yourself in his work.