Having watched Hong Sang-Soo's three first movies in a row, I see that he has the potential of making quite different movies with the same technique. He shows us different characters one at a time that is somehow related to some of the other and the power of it lies in how he can make it look so naturally and casual and still craft a story around it. The small episodes are sometimes so strikingly close to real life that you wonder how they work at the set to make the actors be so much themselves.
This first of his movies is his most tragic. The writer (I wonder how much he bases his characters on himself as the writer/director is quite a recurring theme for him) is endlessly full of him self, leading a miserable existence that pulls the two (married) women who cares for him somewhere bleak. His behaviour is provoking and with no respect, but he still gets loved. Something he cynically use for sexual release.
