Hong Sang-soo's "The Day She Returns" – another mesmerising slow-burn

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No film-maker shows more day-drinking than Hong Sang-soo, and this study of an actor returning from a career break is the same again – as mysteriously addictive as ever

It will not surprise fans of the prolific lo-fi Korean master Hong Sang-soo that his new film in black-and-white – which might be described as “experimental” by those who don’t quite realise that they all look like this – features long scenes, shot from a single, static camera position, featuring a conversation in a restaurant. Nor will they be surprised that one of these scenes contains a sudden, unobtrusive zoom-in to a closer position, for no obvious reason.

It will not be startling for them that the film features someone playing a female screen star of a certain age philosophically pondering her career and life-choices (a key Hong trope). And it certainly won’t be a shock that the film has a character ordering a beer or two before the sun is technically over the yardarm. There is no one in the movies, or in any of the arts, or any aspect of public life, anywhere in the world, who is more utterly dedicated to day-drinking than Hong Sang-soo.

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