2013 Cannes Film Festival Predictions: Hong Sang-soo’s Our Sun-Hee

#70. Hong Sang-soo’s Our Sun-Hee

Gist: No details on this one as yet, but expect soju, dudes with girlfriend issues, a leading character with some sort of affiliation to the film industry, kimchi, more soju, and a clever framing conceit involving flashbacks and repetitions. It’s a cliche by now, but Hong is likely to be remembered as our generation’s Rohmer or Ozu – working from the same template over and again, making only superficially negligible variations from one project to the next.

Prediction: The last time there was a Cannes film festival without a new Hong Sang-soo picture playing somewhere, Bush was in office. Sure, he just premiered a new film, Nobody’s Daughter Haewon, this February in the Berlinale competition, but festival proximity has never stopped Hong before. (2010 saw him drop Ha Ha Ha at Cannes in Un Certain Regard, and then Oki’s Movie barely three months later in Venice.) With a rumored three-film year in store for the South Korean workaholic, he wouldn’t be at all surprised if this just announced project brought him back to the Un Certain Regard section; after In Another Country’s unjustifiably chilly reception, we figure it’ll be awhile before we see him back in contention for a Palme d’Or.