Christmas breakup, two women named Mi-yeon, and 198 minutes of aching monochrome longing.
The story begins with a man left by his girlfriend on Christmas Eve and unfolds across the city of Seoul.
Cinematography
Every frame a charcoal sketch of longing.
Direction
Jung Sung-il's 198-minute gamble on audience patience.
Writing
Five stanzas that rhyme across time and strangers.
Director
Jung Sung-il
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Jung Sung-il, Korea's most formidable film critic, made this his only directorial work—a critic's film about criticism, love, and the Korean New Wave's legacy.
The 198-minute runtime deliberately matches the span of a Seoul winter night, and the 'five stanzas' structure quotes Goethe while subverting the Korean melodrama's usual tear-duct economics.
KR
