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Oof, that was Rotten.

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Awesome!

So Fresh: Absolute Must See!

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The Day He Arrives Photos

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Movie Info

A filmmaker (Yu Jun-sang) wanders aimlessly around Seoul when the friend he was supposed to meet does not show up.

Genre:

drama
Original Language:

Korean
Director:

Hong Sang-Soo
Producer:

Kim Kyoung-hee
Writer:

Hong Sang-Soo
Release Date (Theaters):

Apr 20, 2012 limited
Release Date (Streaming):

Mar 23, 2017
Runtime:

1h 19m

Cast & Crew

Yu Jun-sang
Seongjun

Kim Sang-joong
Young-ho

Song Seon-mi
Boram

Bo-kyeong Kim
Kyung-jin

Hong Sang-Soo
Director

Hong Sang-Soo
Screenwriter

Show all Cast & Crew

News & Interviews for The Day He Arrives

Critics Consensus: The Lucky One Can’t Catch a Break

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Critic Reviews for The Day He Arrives

All Critics (22) | Top Critics (12) | Fresh (20) | Rotten (2)

The listless execution may remind you less of 8 1/2 than of Woody Allen's whiny Stardust Memories.

July 6, 2012 | Full Review…

J. R. Jones
Chicago Reader
Sang-soo Hong has no profound point to pound home. His story doesn't need an ending. He accepts all the characters just as they are.

July 5, 2012 | Rating: 3.5/4 | Full Review…

Roger Ebert
Chicago Sun-Times
Hong abstracts the tense network of fragile relationships to crisp, briskly sketched lines that he adorns with bubbly and self-deprecating humor and graceful wonders...

April 23, 2012 | Full Review…

Richard Brody
New Yorker
Hong offers a strange mixture of magic, mystery, rueful melodrama and dry comedy that's like absolutely nothing else.

April 20, 2012 | Full Review…

Andrew O'Hehir
Salon.com
The geometry of human relationships is the main theme of The Day He Arrives.

April 20, 2012 | Rating: 3.5/4 | Full Review…

Jaime N. Christley
Slant Magazine
The movie becomes an exploration, both playful and rueful, of desire, narrative and the idea beautifully expressed by Faulkner in "Absalom, Absalom!" that "maybe nothing ever happens once and is finished."

April 19, 2012 | Rating: 4/5

Manohla Dargis
New York Times
For many this will be quite frustrating, but for those that it clicks for, much wealth can be wrought.

November 18, 2020 | Full Review…

Jordan M. Smith
IONCINEMA.com
Hong Sangsoo severely tries our patience with a deliberately paced talk-fest focused on the amorous misadventures of a once-promising Korean filmmaker.

June 18, 2020 | Full Review…

Chris Sosa
Bay Area Reporter
Handles a surprising amount of thematic richness in its bare bones structure, and Hong conveys it with both elegance and grace.

August 6, 2019 | Rating: 3.5/4 | Full Review…

Matthew Lucas
From the Front Row
The Day He Arrives is a minor effort from Hong, but it's also rather humorous and, like his other films, contains a brilliantly constructed narrative that continually turns back on itself.

October 4, 2017 | Full Review…

Derek Smith
Tiny Mix Tapes
The ideas at the heart of The Day He Arrives are worth puzzling over and the discussion to follow may be the real reward, but the experience is muted.

March 14, 2013 | Rating: B- | Full Review…

Mark Zhuravsky
The Playlist
Off-beat romcom.

November 24, 2012 | Rating: A | Full Review…

Dennis Schwartz
Dennis Schwartz Movie Reviews

View All Critic Reviews (22)

Audience Reviews for The Day He Arrives

Apr 04, 2014

In "The Day He Arrives," Sungjoon(Jun-Sang Yu) decides to take off some time from his day job as a film director to visit Seoul, so he can look up some old friends. First is Kyungjin(Bo-kyeong Kim), an old flame. Then there is Youngho(Sung Jung Kim) who does not recognize the feelings he has for Boram(Seon-mi Song). The only things that really set apart "The Day He Arrives" from Sang-soo Hong's other films is that it is filmed in black and white and is set in Seoul. But aside from a few exterior shots and a civil defense drill, this could have just easily been Omaha. Perhaps realizing that he is simply repeating himself, Sang-soo Hong decided to make the entire movie one whole long Mobius Strip which you have to admit is kind of different. And actually not that long at 78 minutes.

Walter M Super Reviewer
Dec 04, 2012

A director arrives in Seoul to meet an old friend; he gets drunk, meets various people, and then situations start to repeat with variations, characters who've met before act like they've never been introduced, and he meets a bar owner who looks and acts exactly like his ex-girlfriend. Well made but it's never clear what the movie is trying to say or, more importantly, why we should care.

Greg S Super Reviewer