A new trailer for the 2018 film “Hotel By The River” just dropped after it starred in last year’s awards season. Selected for Toronto International Film Festival and New York Film Festival before going on to win the best actor at the Locarno Film Festival, “Hotel By The River” is an engaging film on life, love, death, and family.
Directed by Hong Sang-soo, the piece is shot in stark black and white and hailed for its expert craftsmanship, something Sang-soo has never failed to deliver. The South Korean director burst into the film scene in the ’90s with his debut film “The Day a Pig Fell into a Well.” It brought great critical acclaim and many awards to the new filmmaker. However, his film that would get him into the festival circuit was 2004’s “Woman is the Future of Man,” which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival. He would later have films featured in the Berlin International Film Festival, the Venice Film Festival, and many others.
Starring in Sang-soo’s “Hotel by the River,” Ki Joo-bong and Kim Min-hee play the two main leads. The plot follows the lives of an elderly poet who feels the fast approach of death and a young woman heartbroken and betrayed by her lover. The poet calls his estranged sons to find closure as the young woman is visited by her friend in the hopes of comfort. As they both stay in the same hotel by the river, their paths will come tantalizing close, and their lives might just intersect. Ki Joo-bong, playing the elderly poet, has garnered critical attention for his roles in the past and is the recipient of the best actor award from Locarno Film Festival for “Hotel by the River.” Kim Min-hee also has quite a few awards to her name and gained international fame for her main role in the 2016 movie “The Handmaiden.”
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“Hotel by the River” will be showing February 15 at the Film Society of Lincoln Center in New York, and at the Laemmle Music Hall in Los Angeles on March 8.