Dir: Park Song-yeol | Cast: Park Song-yeol, Won Hyang-ra | 90 mins | South Korea
Hot in Day, Cold at Night might look from its plot summary to be a depressing tale of economic hardship, but filmmaking-screenwriting duo Park Song-yeol and Won Hyang-ra – who also star as the main couple – manage to make this uplifting and enjoyable. Although not quite a comedy, the film’s finely-calibrated blend of sardonic humour and soft-heartfed vulnerability have made this one of the year’s most talked-about Korean independent films.
Made on a shoestring – and none the worse for it – Hot in Day, Cold at Night shows how it is possible to create remarkable art out of the most basic materials providing the script is strong and based on a believable concept. However bad things get, married couple Young-tae (Park Song-yeol) and Jeong-hee (Won Hyuang-ra) promise themselves that they will never borrow from loan sharks. But with both of them out of work, scraping by on the occasional odd job, their circumstances only continue to worsen. Eventually, without telling her husband, Jeong-hee begins to contemplate the unthinkable.
Tue 08 Nov, 8:45pm, Genesis Cinema