Kwon returns to Seoul from a restorative stay in the mountains. She is given a packet of letters left by Mori, who has come back from Japan to propose to her. Kwon drops and scatters the letters, all of which are undated. When she reads them, she has to make sense of the chronology.
자유의 언덕, Ja-yu-eui eon-deok, 自由之丘, La collina della libertà, Hill of freedom, 相約在首爾, 自由が丘で
Italy Venice Film Festival 
South Korea18 
Japan 
France Italy France Italy Japan South Korea 
"Tell me about it later."
Hill of Freedom returns, after a three film sojourn in the point of view of female protagonists, to the male perspective, in the person of Mori, a Japanese man in Korea to look for a woman, Kwon, whom he has decided he is in love with because she is the best person he has ever known (he respects her so much! A sentiment interchangeable with love in the recent films). The bulk of the story is relayed in a series of letters (memento mori?) Mori wrote to Kwon after he was unable to find her, his voiceover narration guiding us through the requisite drinking bouts, awkward social encounters and questionable life choices. One of Hong's…
This film is incredible, very awkward at times, but it was so funny. I love puzzle movies where it's chronographically hard to follow and gives a different kind of perspective and reality, trying to figure out when happened the scenes we see happened, or even if it's a dream or reality. I also loved the dialog, very cute, and very touching. Loved this movie🤍 !
I can't imagine there's ever been a comedy in which keeping track of the characters' attire was of paramount importance. Such detective work is usually only reserved for crime-related films. That's not to suggest that one can't otherwise enjoy Hong Sang-soo's tightly constructed Hill of Freedom (Jayuui eondeok), but if you want to figure out the film's coda, not to mention what transpired during the scenes just prior to it, then remembering what clothes were being worn by the characters at certain points in the film would go a long way. Don't worry if you don't, though. Even David Bordwell, who liked the film, was left puzzled by it to some degree.
Contrary to what many critics have claimed, the…
Fragmented pieces of a puzzle never truly forming a whole, and instead reveling in their own obscurity. Languages and letters dictate the goings-on of Hill of Freedom. English is the only language through which the man can verbally communicate with people in a land not his own. The letters he writes to his old lover are also in English, and the disjointed film we see gradually forming before our eyes are moments of melancholy, bad decisions, regret, and the human act of communication all jumbled up due to the order in which these letters are read.
Quietly tumultuous is Hill of Freedom; its tranquil air softening its painfully disjointed nature. The man comes to Korea from Japan in search of…
my favorite line of any film ever is delivered in Hill of Freedom. and the line is...
“She’s a bitch!”
on a serious note, this movie means a lot to me. i’m always very hesitant to rewatch my favorite films, as i’m afraid they won’t replicate the same feeling they gave me on the first watch. as i recently rewatched Us and Them for the third time, my worries were swept under me and i loved it all the same as before. rewatching Hill of Freedom, it was the same thing. i feel so strongly about this movie. maybe stronger than any other one of my favorites, as i think this is the most enjoyable and pure film in existence. …
Midway through I stopped trying to assemble these scenes "in order" in my head. Realized it didn't matter.
Memory can be strangely unreliable, yet the longing to reclaim a lost connection remains a deeply relatable sentiment that touches many of us, as we often yearn for the comfort and familiarity of something we once had — a bond that, despite the passage of time still resonates within us.
This universal desire that speaks to our fundamental need for closeness, and the solace found in shared experiences is portrayed here in a creatively impressive way, through a natural approach that feels both deeply human and genuinely enjoyable. Surprisingly, the nonlinear storytelling works well with the seemingly simple narrative, effectively harmonizing the blend of humor that humanizes the characters and provides a sense of realism to their experiences without feeling forced or overly stylized.
I have a feeling I'll be revisiting this often, as it's incredibly charming.
A Japanese man in Korea looking for a phantom love. Reads Bergson (I think), and believes time is an illusion. The structure is appropriately fractured. A woman is reading his letters, drops them on the stairs, and so the movie proceeds in the shuffled time-shifting manner in which chance has arranged them.
He has to communicate in English, with a limited vocabulary. So he cannot cloak his intentions with words. Everything is direct. People are "great" or "poison". Very very funny and very very sad.
my first hong sang-soo! in which fear is dissolved by a flower, and time is shuffled like a deck of cards, and love has no real beginning or end. or explanation. love how settled everything feels & how easily i found myself falling right into it. like i knew where all the light switches were.
This is the most amazing, joyful, cutest movie of all time and also has the best dialog of any movie ever.
It also does more in 67 minutes than movies 3 times its length.
"Hill of Freedom doesn’t just jumble its narrative for the purpose of self-conscious storytelling, it shows how each event, peppered in a different way, can bring a new perspective. But unlike other films where Hong returns to the events, he pushes us forward on, and like the broken English used by the characters, we might not realize the implications of a phrase or moment until after it has been ingested. "
My favorite along with Hahaha. Reviewed on the latest podcast.
Ben's Summer of South Korean Cinema Challenge (original list here)
Review 1/45 (My list here) (Ranked list of films seen here)
Category 20: Hong Sang-soo films
There are many takes on the romantic comedy, but there is nothing else like Hill of Freedom. The more I watch Hong Sang-soo films (which I adore), the more I realise that he is a genre to himself. His films are accused of being 'the same' while they actually make purposeful use of repetition. To call Hong Sang-soo films the same is like calling all jazz the same, or - perhaps more accurately - all jazz music that uses the same key the same.
The films of Hong Sang-soo feel like they derive from…
