The Power of Kangwon Province is Hong’s second feature. In 1997 he won a Tiger Award at the Rotterdam festival with The Day a Pig Fell into the Well. In his latest film, a very human drama, Hong tells his story twice: the second part can be seen as an alternative, but also as a deeper version of the first. The province of Kangwon is a popular holiday destination near Seoul. To escape the heat of summer in the city, and to forget an affair with a university teacher, Ji-sook takes a trip to the Kangwondo mountains with two friends. There she meets a friendly policeman. In the second part, Sang-kwon, a teacher looking for a new job, also goes on a short holiday with a friend. His break is characterised by drunken parties, cheerless flirting, surrealistic dialogues and sudden quarrels.With great psychological insight, but without moralising, The Power of Kangwon Province makes mincemeat of the myth of the holiday romance. In a grander framework, the film is about loneliness, about people’s problems with maintaining relationships and the way people always keep making the same mistakes.
