Right Now, Wrong Then
Right Now, Wrong Then
| 13 August 2015 (USA)
Right Now, Wrong Then Trailers

Chun-su arrives in Suwon one day earlier than scheduled. He has a special lecture to give the next day. Chun-su decides to visit a palace and meets Hee-jung there. Hee-jung is a painter and she lets Chun-su see her workroom with her paintings. In the evening, they go out eat and drink together. There, Chun-su reveals something unexpected to Hee-jung.

Reviews
Perry Kate

Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

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SoftInloveRox

Horrible, fascist and poorly acted

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Reptileenbu

Did you people see the same film I saw?

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Cody

One of the best movies of the year! Incredible from the beginning to the end.

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Brendan Michaels

Maybe it's because I haven't seen any of Sang-soo's other films but Right Now, Wrong Then left me cold and unimpressed. I can see the appeal this film has but I personally found the film a tad annoying. It feels more like a South Korean remake of The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby that admittedly was more interesting than The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby. I was also surprised to see Lady Hideko here. Kim Min- Hee is one of few things that are great about the film, even if she wasn't as impressive as she was in The Handmaiden. If you like the director you might like Right Now, Wrong Then but I was overall just left cold with the film.

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Ashwin Hegde

I went in with low expectations, based on reviews I read, because I couldn't get in for the movie I was actually planning to watch. But it turned out to be one of the more satisfying movies I was able to catch at MAMI 2015. It's a little love story, sort of, told twice. A famous director of art-house cinema is killing time in a sleepy Korean town by visiting the one local attraction, a Palace turned into a museum. A scheduling mix has caused him to reach a day early for a planned lecture at the local film festival (yea, lot of self-referential stuff). He chats up a young woman who has given up a modeling career to become an artist. The events that follow unfold over the course of the day and the next, until his lecture and return to Seoul.There are subtle variations in how events unfold causing the male protagonist to fall flat on his face in the first telling ('Wrong then') but coming to a more fulfilling culmination in the second sequence ('Right now'). He's a cad, but the second time around, turns out to be a lovable one.Don't have too many expectations, and you will find a sweet movie.

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Sergeant_Tibbs

Right Now, Wrong Then is a film of two distinct halves. In 2 days of the life of a filmmaker, Ham Cheon-soo, in town a day early for a screening of his latest work at a local film festival. He meets a younger woman, Yoon Hee-Jeong, and immediately falls for her. She's an artist, and he views and comments on her work, then they go out to dinner where they drunkenly bear their souls. It results in an invitation to a friend's small party where a revelation embarrasses Ham to the point where they part ways on a sour note. He attends his film to a small crowd, conducts a hungover Q&A, and retires, walking away from the town for good. Roll title card "Right Now" rather than "Right Then." The film literally repeats from the beginning, erasing the first half. Like Groundhog Day but only a once-over, we get every scene again but from a slightly different wishful approach.This second time the couple are honest, unlike the first time where Ham tries too hard to impress and Yoon retreats. Again, they fall in love, but given Ham admits to already being married, their feelings are mutual and emotional without being sexual. He may embarrass himself once more at the aforementioned dinner, but it does not result in a cruel parting, instead drawing them closer. It's a quaint experiment given the relaxed tone. The first half on its own is not a movie, and neither is the second. They're co-dependent to give the narrative meaning, but it's far from cinematic in tone. It's a filmmaker's revisionism of what could have been a perfect evening had the characters acted suitably. It's honest, rather than romantic – though the chemistry still bubbles in the air – and it's utterly bittersweet, in a similar vein to Before Sunrise, but strictly not Before Sunset. It's my first film from Korean director Hong Sang-soo and ostensibly from his fans and critics, Right Now Wrong Then is firmly his style – including the Woody Allen-esque romance between an older creative similar to the director himself, and a pretty younger woman. The atmosphere is very modest with simple photography, though Sang-soo does punctuate some scenes with careful zooms. It's very easy-going filmmaking, and its concept makes the second half easier to watch because you know exactly where it's heading as it retraces steps while you have a sharp eye out for the subtle changes that make all the differences, but it doesn't beg you to keep an eye on every detail. Those differences aren't grandstanding though the narrative is clearly motivated by them. Sometimes a scene will repeat its approach entirely despite the previous scene being radically revised. It's trying to be very nuanced rather than having a 'sliding doors/butterfly effect' where causality makes the universe shift places. Instead, the outcome isn't much different but the overall feeling is utterly converted. It's all down to the performances of its two leads, Jeong Jae-Yeong and Kim Min-Hee, to create that tone with their chemistry, who were most likely shooting both halves back to back, location by location. In both halves, Ham is still a jerk with a kind of irritating laugh, but all the characters are deeply human even if Sang-soo doesn't peel back their layers every time. There's a big heart buried in its very slight execution. However, Right Now Wrong Then is not necessarily about how honesty is a better policy – though Ham's harsh analysis of Hee-Jeong's art in the second half remains a sting that takes a long time to settle – but it's about how it's possible to love again. In this case, love doesn't have to be a complete turbulous affair, but it can still be a fulfilling and life-affirming night if approached accordingly.8/10

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gelobter

This film won the Golden Leopard (Best Film award) at the 2015 Locarno Film Festival. By mistake, a film director arrives in a town a day early to attend a screening of one of his films. With time to kill, he strikes up a conversation with an aspiring painter who he meets in a temple and they spend the rest of the day together. Although he finds her attractive, she is considerably younger than him and neither of them are particularly outgoing. A bit like Sliding Doors or Kieslowski's Blind Chance, the film splits into two different versions of what happens over the next 24 hours but, unlike those two films, the outcome depends not so much on chance but on how the main character chooses to behave. Any further info would inevitably contain spoilers so let's just say that it reminded me of some of Erich Roemer's films and is a sort of moral tale. Whether or not you will like Right Now, Wrong Then will probably depend on what you think of the dialogue, which pretty much dominates (there is not much action and little in the way of visuals or soundtrack). In my view, it is almost a really good film but the script needed sharpening up, as my attention started wandering off more than once. Perhaps a bit more humour and a slightly faster pace would have helped, However, it is a thought-provoking film and I found it ultimately satisfying when it ended, which is why I give it 7/10.

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