This little korean-japanese co-production is a beautiful metafictional result of the director Kung-jae Jang's interpretation of what it actually is - a korean director making a film on location in a remote Japanese town. The first part of the feature, presented like a documentary, shows the perspective of the director, tagging his bilingual interpreter along various corners of the town where small threads of low-key stories are hiding. The second part, in colour, shows the film he ended up making - a light, minimal, deceptively simple yet curiously profound vacation romance between a korean tourist and a cheerful local from the town. Despite the apparent featherlight depth of the spoken dialogue, the film says much about the cultural and language barrier between neighboring nations, between people living in a metropolis and people in a small town, between the traditional and the modern. Its apparent aimlessness is its biggest strength, enabling its occasional wit to really shine. The actress who played the two very different lead characters - the interpreter in the first part and the tourist in the second - has done a terrific job.
If I can become really picky, I'd say that at times the structure and the editing give off an impression of it being little more than an intellectual exercise - exceptionally carried out nevertheless. But that's often what these films made out of nothing are.
If I can become really picky, I'd say that at times the structure and the editing give off an impression of it being little more than an intellectual exercise - exceptionally carried out nevertheless. But that's often what these films made out of nothing are.