The Day After

Movie Review

Score: 3 / 5

Hong Sang-soo is a complicated, often controversial figure in Korean cinema, and as I begin working my way through his extensive filmography, now well over thirty features, I find that my feelings about the man tend to mirror my feelings about his films. There is a strange mixture of admiration and frustration that leaves me unsure whether I’ve just watched something quietly profound or merely self-indulgent slop.

The Day After marks only my third encounter with Hong’s work. My first experience was On the Beach at Night Alone, also released in 2017, a fact that highlights just how quickly he tends to produce films. That first viewing left a curious impression on me. I was taken by the stripped-down aesthetic, the emotional candor, and the almost voyeuristic intimacy of his storytelling. It felt raw in a way that was both refreshing and daring. I walked away intrigued enough to dig into his personal controversies and to learn more about his signature style.

But with each subsequent film, I’ve started to feel a kind of diminishing return.

At its heart, The Day After pulls back the curtain on older influential men who see themselves as intellectual or artistic, exposing them instead as fragile, selfish, and often cowardly. There’s an honesty here that feels almost uncomfortable. At times, it borders on self-exposure. Given Hong’s well-documented personal scandals, it’s hard not to read the film as a kind of “writing what you know.” The recurring dynamic of older, influential men entangled with younger women can feel uncomfortably autobiographical. In some moments, that honesty feels daring, as if the director is daring us to see him as flawed and human. In others, it feels indulgent, even slimy, as though he is recreating his own moral failures without fully interrogating them.

The black-and-white cinematography mostly works in the film’s favor. It strips away distraction and emphasizes emotional distance. However, at times, the technique feels wasted or superfluous with there being no sense of purposeful lighting most of the time, leaving scenes feeling unbalanced or overexposed. The taxi scene stands out as the moment where the monochrome aesthetic truly feels successful. As Kim Min-hee watches snowfall drift past the window, illuminated by the single interior light of the cab, the frame takes on a quiet noir romanticism. It’s intimate, reflective, and unexpectedly tender. For a brief moment, Hong’s restrained style aligns perfectly with the emotional state of the character and the film.

As with many of his films, the drinking scenes are both a strength and a weakness. There is something undeniably compelling about Hong’s extended conversations over simple meals and bottles of soju. They feel lived-in and spontaneous, often revealing more about the characters than any overt dramatic confrontation could. The opening confrontation with the wife, mirrored by the first lunch scene with the new employee, is sharp and purposeful. The final reunion between the former employer and his one-day employee is quietly brutal.

But the repetition becomes excessive. More coffee. More drinks. Another meal. Then another. What initially feels like thematic mirroring begins to feel like narrative stalling. The film starts to drag, spinning its wheels rather than deepening its emotional stakes. The intimacy becomes diluted through overuse.

The editing and timeline further complicate the experience. Hong’s abrupt hard cuts and subtle shifts in time can be disorienting. At times, I struggled to situate myself within the chronology of the story. And yet, I’m conflicted here as well. Part of that confusion feels intentional. The lead character, played by Kwon Hae-hyo, is a habitual liar, reshaping reality to suit his emotional convenience. The fractured editing mirrors the narrative he tries to feed his wife and secretary. The audience shares in the disorientation. We, too, feel the slipperiness of memory and narrative. What feels like a flaw may in fact be an extension of the film’s thematic core.

One of the more frustrating elements in The Day After is its score, composed by Hong himself. The music, sparse when it appears, undercuts several key emotional moments. Rather than deepening the tension or melancholy, it often makes the film feel cheaper, almost amateur. In at least one significant scene, what should have landed as emotionally significant instead feels embarrassing, the music flattening rather than amplifying the impact.

Ultimately, Hong’s cinema often feels like a continuous variation on the same template: conversations over soju, morally compromised middle-aged men, younger impressionable women navigating and narrative loops that blur time and memory. And yet, even as I recognize the repetition, perhaps even because of it, I can’t help but somewhat respect some of the audacity. There is something almost confrontational about how little he seems to care for conventional polish or how unbothered he seems by airing out his own moral failings up on the big screen. He refuses to disguise his thematic obsessions and instead seems to just lean into them.

That tension creates a strange push-and-pull for me. I’m drawn in by his honesty, but worn down by his sameness. Impressed, but irritated. It’s a love-hate dynamic that keeps me returning, though not without hesitation.

Which brings me back to where I always seem to land with Hong Sang-soo.

He is frustrating, repetitive, and occasionally undercuts his own strongest moments. And yet, there is something undeniably talented about his cinema. It is unvarnished, self-aware, and quietly cruel. It refuses easy catharsis. It exposes its characters, and perhaps its creator, as flawed, selfish, and painfully human.

I didn’t necessarily enjoy watching The Day After, but I can’t dismiss it either.

And maybe that uneasy middle ground is exactly where Hong wants us to sit.