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‘The black-and-white Grass is a deceptively potent entry in the [director’s] canon, a thimbleful of purest, concentrated Hong-brand soju.

A young woman, Mina (Gong Minjeung), slides into a booth opposite Hongsoo (Ahn Jaehong). She tells him she’s embarking on a trip to Europe, though that later turns out to be false. They exchange pleasantries that turn unpleasant when the topic shifts to a deceased mutual friend and Mina insists they both bear some degree of responsibility. Blame also arises a table over when the demure-looking Sunghwa (frequent Hong ensemble player Seo Younghua) is accused of causing the suicide of a well-regarded professor. An opportunistic, past-his-prime actor (Ki Joobong) tries to inveigle himself into an old acquaintance’s apartment, and the inevitable Hong-surrogate filmmaker (Jung Jinyoung) is rebuffed by writer Jiyoung (Kim Saebyuk) when he asks to partner up on a screenplay.

In shifting permutations, these people end up staying late into the night, all the while observed by Areum, played by Hong’s muse, Kim Minhee, who sits mostly alone at a window table, frowning at her laptop. For a time we can almost wonder if the conversations on which she’s eavesdropping are really happening or if they’re manifestations of what she’s writing.

Outside the cafe, in a small planter, grass grows upward and time moves forward. But inside Hong’s flat-lit proscenium, the characters are unglued from time mired in a boozy, shapeshifting now, in which they can endlessly experience the mystery and miracle of other people and all the things we cannot know about them.’ Variety