U.S. Trailer for Hong Sangsoo’s The Day She Returns, Opening Next Month on a Double Bill with The Day He Arrives

It’s probably a coincidence that one of Hong Sangsoo’s best movies in recent years evokes the title of what’s arguably his masterpiece—or, per our own Nick Newman, one of the greatest films ever made—since the structural similarities start and end at a title. (Black-and-white photography is another overlap, but if we started playing that game then a lot of Hong movies have to fit in the tent.) Nevertheless, Cinema Guild will begin a theatrical roll-out for The Day She Returns on a double bill with 2011’s The Day He Arrives, which debuts at LA’s Acropolis on December 15 and opens at New York’s Metrograph on December 18—needless to say, a better pairing than the other eventized cinemagoing that day. Ahead of this, a new trailer for The Day She Returns is here.

As Leonardo Goi said in our Critic’s Pick review out of Berlinale, “Hong is that rare artist whose corpus invites a kind of double consciousness: you can’t watch any one of his works without thinking about the wider body it belongs to, a constantly evolving gossamer of twinnings and deja-vus. If it is true that, to borrow from Jean Renoir, ‘a director makes only one movie in his life, then he breaks it up and makes it again,’ what’s most electrifying about Hong’s cinema is the feeling of watching an artist interrogating his obsessions to say something new each time.”

Here’s the official synopsis: “The Day She Returns follows actress Bae Jeongsu (Song Sunmi), who, having stepped back from acting after marriage and a subsequent divorce, returns to the profession with a role in an independent film. As the film’s release approaches, she takes part in a series of press interviews, only to discover later—when asked to revisit those moments in her acting class—that she cannot clearly recall what was said. She is tired and wants to go home. Her daughter is waiting. Infused with quiet observation and subtle humor, his 34th feature is a meditation on memory and performance, and the subtle interplay between the two. The Day She Returns features a compelling central performance by Song Sunmi, alongside longtime collaborators Cho Yunhee (The Day After) and Park Miso (Introduction). Continuing Hong Sangsoo’s distinctive exploration of the boundaries between lived experience and artistic creation, the film unfolds in his signature minimalist style, marked by intimate conversations, precise compositions, and a gently unfolding sense of time.”

Watch the trailer below: