Actress as Auteur: Spotlight on Moon So-ri

While the Renaissance in South Korean cinema that picked up speed through the 1990s is often discussed in terms of directors, it’s impossible to imagine without thespians of the caliber of Moon So-ri, whose career choices—films with Lee Chang-dong, Park Chan-wook, and Hong Sangsoo, to name a few—speak of an unusual daring and curatorial intelligence. Coming out of the gate with a substantive role in Lee’s Peppermint Candy, Moon has consistently made herself essential in the best works that her homeland’s cinema has to offer, with her turn in Park’s steamy period thriller The Handmaiden particularly singled out for praise. Active on stage and a director in her own right, Moon, like Isabelle Huppert, with whom she appeared in Hong’s In Another Country, offers a compelling case for the actress as auteur—a case this retrospective organically makes.