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In a prime example of Hong Sangsoo’s theme-and-variation comedic construction, the nighttime streets of Seoul become conduits for nostalgia, painful reunions, and fortuitous chance encounters when a lapsed filmmaker (Hong regular Yoo Jun-sang) returns from the countryside for a brief visit. On his first night, he gets drunk with some former students and then stumbles off to a tearful reunion with his ex-lover, Kyung-jin. The next night—and several nights thereafter—he goes drinking with a heartbroken friend at a restaurant owned by a woman who looks exactly like Kyung-jin (and is played by the same actress, Kim Bo-kyung). Thus begins a series of repetitions and coincidences that coalesce into what New York Times film critic Manohla Dargis calls “an exploration, both playful and rueful, of desire, narrative and the idea beautifully expressed by Faulkner in Absalom, Absalom! that ‘maybe nothing ever happens once and is finished.’” (Dir.: Hong Sangsoo, Korea, 2011, 79 min., 35mm, Korean with English subtitles)