On Watching 'Right Now, Wrong Then.'

I should write a short review. For me it's Hong Sang-soo's third work, but among the three works I've seen ('On the Beach at Night Alone,' 'Yourself and Yours,' 'Right Now, Wrong Then') it's the oldest in terms of timing. Although that's only 2015.

If you see the director 'Ham Chun-su' who appears in this film as 'Hong Sang-soo' and 'Hee-jeong' as Kim Min-hee, this would be a 'dramatization' of a real affair story, but this time too I decided not to see it that way. It's because it felt a little different. Every time, director Hong Sang-soo makes improvisational films. He shoots films with no fixed scenario and no fixed title. So I decided to think a little differently. As 'an inevitable narrative and structure that emerged out of chance.'

This film is one premised on the 'what ifs' of life. Here, 'what if' means supposing 'what it would have been like if done differently.' But this thought is one I had after watching the film, and I don't think you have to see this film only that way. I simply felt admiration for the director's conception of the work. In any case, telling 'two similar stories' with different feelings is a unique experimental form. The point that a different narrative development takes place over similar locations (Suwon Hwaseong, the tea house, the raw fish restaurant, the friend's tea house, the road to Hee-jeong's house), and the point that such a narrative development 'isn't greatly different yet shows a big change,' I find very fresh.

As you go through life, I think several moments come when, in some way, you think 'I'd like to live it over again.' That's been true for me too. I think the director melted this kind of desire in very well. Moreover, watching Hong Sang-soo's films, I feel that the focus seems to be on how these moments when you think 'I'd like to live it over again' are quite ordinary. And I could see that those moments of thinking 'what if' always appear within Hong Sang-soo's filmography on the basis of tea houses, drinking gatherings, and 'conversation.' I think the conflict and harmony amid countless conversations led the film's story.

In the two stories the angles show slight differences. In that respect, you could say the message they intend to show differs a bit. In the first story, Ham Chun-su's thoughts clearly come out as monologue here and there. But in the second story, the narration doesn't come out. Whether it's unnecessary, or whether it's needed but simply not told, I can't quite judge. That said, thinking about it, even in the first story it doesn't come out much toward the end. In particular, from the 'drinking scene' on, the monologue didn't come out. Moreover, in the first story, whether it's the aftermath of the conflict that arose at Hee-jeong's friend's drinking gathering I don't know, but he's on bad terms even with the host of the film's preview screening, whereas in the second story, perhaps because walking and talking with Hee-jeong on the night streets went well, he seems to have no particular problem with the screening host either. On top of that, after the screening ends, Hee-jeong comes to find Ham Chun-su and even watches the film before leaving. And so the two conclude the second story with 'harmony.'

I think it might be that it's right now and it was also right then. At any time, people often think something is 'wrong' even if it's only slightly not to their liking. But it's unclear which is more right or wrong just because it's then, or just because it's now. Only, I want to think it's right now and it was right then too. I intend to, and I'm also doing so. And, I really hope people watch this film once. The drinking-scene acting of Jung Jae-young and Kim Min-hee inside the raw fish restaurant seems by far the best drinking-scene acting I've ever seen. I felt it was even more outstanding than the drinking-scene acting in 'On the Beach at Night Alone.' That said, between the 'married man revealed through honest dissection' and the 'married man revealed behind pleasant-sounding words' shown in the film, I can't readily decide which is better. I thought both were reasonably fine. Only, if you could harmonize the two well, that would be even better.

P.S. The novel The Unbearable Lightness of Being comes to mind. They say life can't be lived twice and that every single moment is a 'once-only choice,' and I think there's a point where that connects with the film's content.