The Woman Who Ran

Gamhee is a married woman whose husband is away on business, the first time the couple has been apart in five years. She uses the time to look up three friends in and around Seoul, visiting two of them at their homes and running into a third by chance at a movie theater. The women talk easily about work, health and relationships, but each meeting carries undercurrents their conversation never quite reaches, and men keep drifting into these reunions from outside.

The film is written, produced and directed by Hong Sang-soo, the sixth of the fifteen features he has directed in chronological order, following Hotel by the River and preceding Walk Up. Kim Min-hee plays Gamhee, with Seo Young-hwa, Song Sun-mi, Kim Sae-byuk, Kwon Hae-hyo and Lee Eun-mi in supporting roles. It is a Korean production from Jeonwonsa Film, running a short 77 minutes.

Reaction split along familiar lines for the director. Critics rated it highly, an 8.1 out of 10 across 43 reviews, while audiences were cooler: on TMDB it holds 6.6 out of 10 from 112 votes. The wide gap suggests the film's quiet structure and repeated encounters rewarded the attention of reviewers more than that of general viewers.