Product Details

• Actors:  Tae-woo Kim and Hyeon-a Seong Ji-tae Yu
• Format: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, Widescreen, NTSC
• Language: Korean
• Subtitles: English
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.66:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: Unrated
• Studio: New Yorker Video
• DVD Release Date: March 27, 2007
• Run Time: 88 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 2.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B000LC3IPQ
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #85,249 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• For more information about "Woman Is the Future of Man" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Editorial Reviews

Like Wong Kar-wai and Tsai Ming-liang, New Korean Cinema luminary Hong Sangsoo marries Asian and European sensibilities. Michael Atkinson in The Village Voice cannily dubbed him "the love child Antonioni and Hou Hsiao-hsien never had," while Woman Is the Future of Man could be described as a postmodern, post-romantic riff on Rashomon and Jules and Jim, refracting an unstable ménage à trois through two misaligned perspectives.

The film's ruefully comic view of modern love centers on the Mutt-and-Jeff dynamic between two mismatched buddies - tall, placid art professor Munho and short, volatile filmmaker Hunjoon - who share an inconsistent passion for the same woman, artist turned-bar-girl Sunhwa. Shuttling between the summery past and the snowy present, the two recently reunited friends drunkenly recall their failed relationships with Sunhwa, littered with broken promises, fumbled opportunities, and sexual gaucheries (no one but Hong captures the indelicacies of the bedroom with such wincingly unsanitized candor). Employing a hyper-observant camera style acutely sensitive to quicksilver shifts in the emotional weather, Woman Is the Future of Man is a wry, wistful discourse on the immaturity of men, the fickleness of memory, and the elusiveness of love.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A very rewarding Korean drama..., June 20, 2007

By 

Woopak "The THRILL" (Where Dark Asian Knights Dwell) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Woman Is the Future of Man (DVD)

Hong Sangsoo is a film professor turned director. I have seen only 2 of his films, "Virgin stripped bare by her Bachelors" and this one; "WOMAN IS THE FUTURE OF MAN". The director is an artist concerned with alienation and the "battle of the sexes". Sangsoo definitely has a fondness for subtle symbolism and repetition in tales of unsympathetic relations and the mistake of always trying to recapture the past, not being able to let go.

This director is a minimalist and a very strict one at that. He avoids cinematic manipulations like close-ups. Most scenes in his movies are done in 1 take, wide shots and limits camera movement. He gives his performers a wide berth to fill a scene. I think he uses an observational perspective.

The tale begins when 2 old chums meet for a lazy afternoon, which will lead to a drunken weekend. Munho (Jitae Yu) is a married art teacher, while his friend, Hunjoon (Teawoo Kim) had just returned from his film studies from the U.S. the screenplay is about "slow reveal", blossoming occurrances and "woman..." starts with Munho making a point not to invite Hunjoon into his home. Munho offers Hunjoon to walk into the backyard to walk on fresh snow.
Two of the potent symbolisms are shown when Hunjoon takes a few steps on the snow and backtracks in them on purpose so that the path will seem like it had suddenly stopped. As for this scene; it is a piece of symbolism: 1)an abandoned path (stopped walking forward)means no set direction or I suppose from the title's standpoint "no future" 2)Hunjoon walking backwards in his steps means a desire to go back and relive the past.

As for the act that Munho didn't let his friend inside his home, Munho has harbored anger when Hunjoon gave his spouse an " friendly American" hug when they went to visit him in the States before. Munho is a man of resentment and insecurity.

This becomes the premise of the film. The 2 men-kids drink and eventually reminisce about a shared romance back in the college days, Sunhwa (Hyeona Seong, The Intimate, Time). They inadvertently decide to see her and in turn, their past failings resurface. For Hunjoon, he remembers Sunhwa as a fragile girl that he had mistreated. He took advantage of her when he supposedly tried to "cleanse" her (by having sex with her) after she was raped by an old school chum, then dumping her to attend film school in America. For Munho, he dated her while Hunjoon was in the states attending film school. He remembers her as an awkward sexual conquest. The ultimate irony is that the two men are unable to see their shortcomings when it comes to women, they express their frustrations in their drunken pleas for punishment, at the same time, they are pathetic and ignorant--they are doomed to commit their past mistakes.

VIDEO/AUDIO: ANAMORPHIC WIDESCREEN. The transfer is kept simple, not very striking. The PQ is not vibrant, somewhat soft and lacking in contrast. But is very clean, free of print damage. Korean Language 5.1 Dolby and 2.0 surround with English subs.
EXTRAS:
Liner notes by Michael Atkinson and Kyung Hyun Kim.
French and Korean Theatrical Trailers.
Introduction by Martin Scorsese (this is very nice).
Interviews with the three leads & Making of Featurette .
OVERALL:
WOMAN IS THE FUTURE OF MAN is a very rewarding drama. The dvd is not technically sound, but this film has a lot to offer fans of Korean "art" films.
RECOMMENDED!! (4 stars)

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Cigarettes and Soju, August 30, 2009

By 

Daitokuji31 (Black Glass) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Woman Is the Future of Man (DVD)

After a few years abroad studying film, Hun-joon returns to South Korea a bit worse for wear. Upon his arrival, the first thing he does is go to the home of his university friend Mun-ho who is now an art professor, married, and the owner of a nice home. However, as it soon becomes evident while the two men chain smoke and drink soju at a Chinese restaurant, Mun-ho, like Hun-joon, is not really happy. Also, what becomes evident is that the two men are really not that close and there seems to be a lake of animosity beneath a thin ice of calmness between the two men. This feeling, of course, is linked with a woman, Sun-hwa, whom Hun-joon dated but left in Korea when he went to study in America.

Quite jarringly the film jumps into several flashbacks which depict Hun-joon and Mun-ho's relationship with Sun-hwa. Hun-joon is gentle and thoughtful towards Sun-hwa, but he does leave her. Mun-ho is much more aggressive towards Sun-hwa and has an affair with her while Hun-joon remains clueless. After both Hun-joon and Mun-ho are rejected by the restaurant's waitress--Hun-joon asked her to be in a film and Mun-ho asked her to pose for a painting--they decide to go to the small town where Sun-hwa is managing a bar. However, can such a meeting between the members of a broken triangle truly be fruitful?

Director Hong Sang-soo has received much critical acclaim both domestically and abroad for his complex and slightly disturbing films such as The Day a Pig Fell into the Well and The Power of Kangwon Province, however, while being a decent film, Woman is the Future of Man suffers a little from a glacial pace which makes its under 90 minute duration seem to drag on for a bit longer than what it actually does. Also, as I stated above, the flashbacks at the beginning of the film are a bit jarring and sometimes seem out of place because they do not fit in with the linearity of the overall story at first. However, they do help fill in some pieces to the puzzle upon a second viewing. While not for everyone, Woman is the Future of Man is a decent place to start for those wanting to watch a more "artistic" Korean film instead of the heaps of horror and romance films that saturate the available Korean films in the West.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars They actually made a movie about nothing., May 6, 2011

By 

maskedgamer - See all my reviews

This review is from: Woman Is the Future of Man (DVD)

Don't really know what I was thinking when I checked this one out. The movie is basically about two middle aged losers talking about the girl that got away. The movie is harsh to watch because it's very monotone to say the least. There's very little done to distinguish the flash back scenes. It's really just laziness on the directors part. A special effect, sound queue or anything would have helped for you to realize it was the past. They look the same in the past as they do in the present day so it just makes the story more difficult to follow. Usually Korean films bring great story to a picture but this was just a let down. The male characters are so spineless and bland they aren't even believable. Most of the movie is just sitting down and drinking and talking about absolutely nothing. I've seen too many Korean and foreign films to even care about social differences it's just the norm for me now.

Although I didn't like the movie very much I still watched it to the end (took me several days). It just feels like a lazy movie that might have been something much better if the writers put more effort into it. This is actually for once a bad movie that lacks any charm. A true monotone movie that you will forget as soon as you watch it. The first movie I've watched that didn't have one single highlight. I never thought a movie could be so bland. The most interesting thing about this movie is the box cover where the actors LOOK NOTHING LIKE THEY DO IN THE MOVIE! They must have taken that photo on audition day or something or maybe they took it while they were on set of a different more interesting movie that wasn't this one.

Bottom line... this movie sucks.

1Star well deserved.