Needing a quiet, relaxing environment in which to complete the script for his latest film, well-known director Kim Jung-rae heads to a largely deserted seaside resort with his friend, Won Chang-wook, and Won's beautiful girlfriend, Kim Mun-suk. Tensions quickly develop when Kim and Mun-suk become romantically involved with one another, leaving the erstwhile Won as essentially odd-man-out. Yet, terrified of making any kind of long term commitment, Kim backs away from Mun-suk at a crucial moment, causing a serious rupture in their relationship. It's only after a second woman comes into the picture that Mun-suk returns to the beach town, further complicating Kim's already complicated life - though providing possible fodder for the script he's having such a hard time completing.

Slow-moving, episodic and hypnotic, the Korean drama "Woman on the Beach" is wonderfully perceptive about human nature and the multi-faceted and complex ways in which people relate to one another. It's virtually impossible to pigeonhole any of the characters since they often act and react in ways that surprise and intrigue us. Director Sang-soo Hong relies largely on extended conversations to tell his story, an approach which allows the drama to unfold in a thoroughly naturalistic fashion, without having to resort to melodrama or contrivance to get its points across. To that end, the movie is filled with numerous seemingly irrelevant, off-the-cuff moments (including the final scene) that add immeasurably to the verisimilitude of the piece. As a result, every moment in the film feels unscripted and real, an illusion greatly enhanced by the excellent performances of Seung-woo Kim, Hyun-jung Go, Seon-mi Song and Tae-woo Kim.

Finally, the shuttered hotels and sparsely populated beaches and boardwalks provide an eerily appropriate backdrop for this tale of an individual so haunted by the demons and ghosts of his own past that he finds it difficult to live in the present.

Hong Sang-Soo reminds me a lot of Eric Rohmer, which seems to be a comparison many have made before. But I would definitely rank him quite below Rohmer. I've seen four films by Hong now. I liked the first one I saw, Woman Is the Future of Man, a lot, but the other two, besides the one about which I'm currently writing, I only barely recall. Woman on the Beach seems far too similar to Woman Is the Future of Man for me to like it a lot. I didn't hate it, by any means, though I did eventually grow tired of it. I liked the initial conflict, where a man brings along a woman whom he thinks of as his girlfriend on a trip with a film director friend of his. The director is kind of a jerk, and the girl is immediately attracted to him – either that, or she is so bothered by the meek guy that she just wants to spurn him. Later on, she discovers that the director's jerkiness is a pretty clear character trait. Well, duh. Much as I remember from Woman Is the Future of Man, Hong's major insight seems to be that men (particularly film directors) are jerks, and that women like jerks, but also think they can change them. It's a pretty trite observation, really, and, in the end, kind of hateful toward both sexes. It doesn't help that the woman becomes a completely jealous shrew. If I'm remembering correctly, I liked the woman of Woman Is the Future of Man much better. She seemed, in the end, better and stronger than the men in her life.

Sometimes a Korean film really grabs me, like Il Mare, which was remade into The Lake House. It was a beautifully romantic film; just what this wasn't.

The dialog throughout was superficial and boring. It never really rose above the level you would expect in a bar or nightclub.

Superficial is a good term to describe Director Kim Jung-rae (Seung-woo Kim). he was really self-conscious and a bit misogynist. He was only interesting in bedding whomever he could; not in anything resembling a relationship.

After he had Kim Mun-Suk (Hyun-jung Go) he was ready to move on and get rid of her. He immediately started looking for someone that looked like her (Seon-mi Song) to bed.

It was a big disappointment, and, for a comedy, it wasn't even funny.