{ "id": "epa41kqc63", "slug": "the-woman-who-ran", "title": "The Woman Who Ran (도망친 여자)", "updated": "2026-11-01", "topic_path": [ { "id": "culture", "label": "Arts and culture", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture" }, { "id": "culture.performance", "label": "Screen and stage", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen", "label": "Film and television", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films", "label": "Films and standalone screen works", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works", "label": "Individual films by title and year", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.drama-biographical", "label": "Drama and biographical films (individual works)", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.drama-biographical" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.drama-biographical.drama-films-2020-to-2022", "label": "Drama films 2020 to 2022", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.drama-biographical.drama-films-2020-to-2022" } ], "geo": [ { "id": "geo.asia.t2001.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.drama-biographical", "label": "Asia (other) · 2001 to 2020: Drama and biographical films (individual works)", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.asia.t2001.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.drama-biographical", "path": [ { "id": "geo.asia", "label": "Asia (other)", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.asia" }, { "id": "geo.asia.t2001", "label": "Asia (other) · 2001 to 2020", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.asia.t2001" }, { "id": "geo.asia.t2001.culture", "label": "Arts and culture", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.asia.t2001.culture" }, { "id": "geo.asia.t2001.culture.performance", "label": "Screen and stage", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.asia.t2001.culture.performance" }, { "id": "geo.asia.t2001.culture.performance.screen", "label": "Film and television", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.asia.t2001.culture.performance.screen" }, { "id": "geo.asia.t2001.culture.performance.screen.films", "label": "Films and standalone screen works", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.asia.t2001.culture.performance.screen.films" }, { "id": "geo.asia.t2001.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works", "label": "Individual films by title and year", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.asia.t2001.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works" }, { "id": "geo.asia.t2001.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.drama-biographical", "label": "Drama and biographical films (individual works)", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.asia.t2001.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.drama-biographical" } ] } ], "excerpt": "The Woman Who Ran (도망친 여자, Domangchin yeoja) is Hong Sang-soo's 2020 South Korean drama, his 24th feature and seventh with Kim Min-hee, following Gamhee visiting three friends; it won the Silver Bear for Best Director at the 70th Berlinale.", "snippet": "The Woman Who Ran (도망친 여자, Domangchin yeoja) is Hong Sang-soo's 2020 South Korean drama, his 24th feature and seventh with Kim Min-hee, following Gamhee visiting three friends; it won the Silver Bear for Best Director at the 70th Berlinale.", "node": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.drama-biographical.drama-films-2020-to-2022", "markdown": "# The Woman Who Ran (도망친 여자)\n\n**The Woman Who Ran** (도망친 여자, *Domangchin yeoja*) is a 2020 South Korean drama film written, directed, produced, edited, and scored by [Hong Sang-soo](https://www.edgepedia.org/hong-sang-soo), in which a woman named Gamhee visits three friends while her husband is away on a business trip. It won the Silver Bear for Best Director at the 70th [Berlin International Film Festival](https://www.edgepedia.org/berlin-international-film-festival) and is Hong's 24th feature and his seventh film with actress Kim Min-hee.[1](https://www.yna.co.kr/view/AKR20200910085100005) • [2](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1wwYffV5kpU)\n\n| Key fact | Detail |\n|---|---|\n| Director and writer | Hong Sang-soo, who also produced, edited, and composed the music[3](https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2020/10/6/the-woman-who-ran-review-nyff/) |\n| Premiere and award | Competed at the 70th Berlin International Film Festival; Silver Bear for Best Director, announced February 29, 2020[2](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1wwYffV5kpU) |\n| Place in Hong's career | His 24th feature and seventh collaboration with Kim Min-hee[1](https://www.yna.co.kr/view/AKR20200910085100005) |\n| Runtime and release | 77 minutes; South Korean theatrical release September 17, 2020, adults-only rating[4](https://www.koreanfilm.or.kr/eng/films/index/filmsView.jsp?movieCd=20205001&play=Y) |\n| Cast | Kim Min-hee (Gamhee), Seo Young-hwa (Youngsoon), Song Seon-mi (Suyoung), Kim Sae-byuk (Woojin), Kwon Hae-hyo (Mr. Jung)[5](https://www.justwatch.com/us/movie/the-woman-who-ran) |\n| Korean box office | 143 screens, 10,344 admissions, $64,039 total gross[4](https://www.koreanfilm.or.kr/eng/films/index/filmsView.jsp?movieCd=20205001&play=Y) |\n| Critical standing | 98% on the Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer from 46 reviews; 2nd place in Cahiers du Cinéma's 2020 top ten[6](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_woman_who_ran) • [7](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11697690/awards/) |\n\n## Spoilers\n\n### Premise and structure\n\nGamhee (Kim Min-hee) travels without her husband for the first time in the five years of their marriage, during which, she tells each friend, they have not spent a single day apart. She visits two friends at their homes and meets a third by chance at a movie theater, and the film divides into three casually threaded but distinct sections around these encounters.[8](https://www.filmlinc.org/nyff2020/films/the-woman-who-ran/) • [9](https://www.awardsdaily.com/2020/10/01/nyff-review-the-woman-who-ran/)\n\nThe three friends carry separate small dramas. Youngsoon (Seo Young-hwa), divorced, has given up meat and gardens in her backyard; her neighbor demands she stop feeding stray cats because his wife fears cats and cannot leave their apartment. Suyoung (Song Seon-mi) has a crush on her architect neighbor and is hounded by a young poet she met at a bar and slept with once. Woojin (Kim Sae-byuk) works at a movie theater; her meeting with Gamhee is polite but strained, and Gamhee afterward has a tense conversation with Mr. Jung (Kwon Hae-hyo), a novelist she dated before her marriage and who is now Woojin's husband.[6](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_woman_who_ran) • [10](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2020/dec/16/the-woman-who-ran-review-hong-sang-soo)\n\nRepetition drives the film's effect. Gamhee repeats the same account of her marriage, including her husband's line that people in love should stick to each other, in each of the three encounters, and she sounds less convincing each time.[9](https://www.awardsdaily.com/2020/10/01/nyff-review-the-woman-who-ran/) • [11](https://www.rogerebert.com/festivals/nyff-2020-the-human-voice)\n\n## Style\n\n**Men at the margins.** In a reversal of the pattern in many of Hong's earlier films, the narrative stays almost entirely with the women's conversations, and the men who interrupt them are treated as nuisances to be talked down or sent away. In all three sections the men are shown only from behind, with their backs to the camera.[12](https://sdaff.org/2020/movies/woman-who-ran/) • [13](https://www.iffmh.de/festival/programme/films/the-woman-who-ran/index_eng.html)\n\nThe film's best-known comic setpiece is the neighborly argument about the stray cats, which critics at the Berlinale singled out; the German critic Fabian Wallmeier of public radio rbb called it a lesson in how to answer unreasonable, passively aggressive behavior, ending on a close-up of the victorious cat.[14](https://welcon.kocca.kr/ko/info/trend/1941573)\n\nCinematographer Kim Su-min's camera records the conversations from an undramatic distance, with pronounced zooms that end almost every shot and long static takes closing out the first two visits.[13](https://www.iffmh.de/festival/programme/films/the-woman-who-ran/index_eng.html) • [3](https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2020/10/6/the-woman-who-ran-review-nyff/)\n\n## Release and reception\n\nThe film premiered in the [Competition](https://www.edgepedia.org/competition) section of the 70th Berlin International Film Festival, Hong's fourth Berlinale Competition invitation, and took the Silver Bear for Best Director. It was the first Best Director award for a Korean film at Berlin since [Kim Ki-duk](https://www.edgepedia.org/kim-ki-duk)'s *[Samaritan Girl](https://www.edgepedia.org/samaritan-girl)* in 2004.[15](https://cmc-pictures.com/cmc-pictures-will-release-hong-sangsoos-berlin-silver-bear-winner-the-woman-who-ran-in-australia-and-new-zealand/) • [16](https://www.archivecenter.net/kaitArchive/attach/120000/127418/20250826155807261.pdf)\n\nIt screened on the Main Slate of the 58th [New York Film Festival](https://www.edgepedia.org/new-york-film-festival) and played widely on the 2020 festival circuit, including [San Sebastián](https://www.edgepedia.org/san-sebastian), where it received a Special Mention in the Zabaltegi-Tabakalera section, and festivals in Busan, Chicago, London, Vienna, Tokyo, and Singapore.[8](https://www.filmlinc.org/nyff2020/films/the-woman-who-ran/) • [4](https://www.koreanfilm.or.kr/eng/films/index/filmsView.jsp?movieCd=20205001&play=Y) • [7](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11697690/awards/) [Cahiers du Cinéma](https://www.edgepedia.org/cahiers-du-cinema) placed it second in its 2020 year-end top ten, and the Korean Association of Film Critics gave it a FIPRESCI award and a place in its ten best films of the year.[7](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11697690/awards/)\n\nIn South Korea it opened on September 17, 2020 on 143 screens and sold 10,344 admissions for a gross of $64,039, a modest commercial result typical of Hong's releases.[4](https://www.koreanfilm.or.kr/eng/films/index/filmsView.jsp?movieCd=20205001&play=Y) The Cinema Guild released it in United States theaters on July 9, 2021, and Rotten Tomatoes lists a streaming release on February 11, 2022; the film holds a 98% Tomatometer rating from 46 reviews.[6](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_woman_who_ran) • [8](https://www.filmlinc.org/nyff2020/films/the-woman-who-ran/)\n\n## Place in Hong Sang-soo's career\n\nThe award confirmed a run of Berlin recognition: Hong had previously won the Silver Bear for Best Actress for Kim Min-hee in *On the Beach at Night Alone* (2017), and he followed *The Woman Who Ran* with the Silver Bear for Best Screenplay for *[Introduction](https://www.edgepedia.org/introduction-2021-film)* in 2021.[14](https://welcon.kocca.kr/ko/info/trend/1941573) • [4](https://www.koreanfilm.or.kr/eng/films/index/filmsView.jsp?movieCd=20205001&play=Y) Critics noted the film's shifted emphasis: since Kim Min-hee became his regular lead, Hong's cinema had moved toward its feminine pole, and here the women's talk carries the film while the men are reduced to interruptions.[17](https://www.lemonde.fr/cinema/article/2020/09/29/confidences-de-femmes-arnaques-loufoques-amour-a-distance-les-films-a-l-affiche_6054129_3476.html) Reviewers read it as a study of marriage, friendship, and unspoken regret; Richard Brody in *The New Yorker* described it as putting \"the strangeness of a happy marriage\" under paradoxical scrutiny through a series of dialogues about money, animals, real estate, food, art, and men.[18](https://www.newyorker.com/goings-on-about-town/movies/the-woman-who-ran)\n\n## References\n\n1. [도망친 여자 상영 리뷰, 연합뉴스 (2020)](https://www.yna.co.kr/view/AKR20200910085100005)\n2. [홍상수 '도망친 여자'로 베를린영화제 은곰상 감독상, 연합뉴스 (YouTube)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1wwYffV5kpU)\n3. [From NYFF: 'The Woman Who Ran' is a Head Scratcher, The Harvard Crimson](https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2020/10/6/the-woman-who-ran-review-nyff/)\n4. [The Woman Who Ran (2020), Korean Film Council (KOFIC)](https://www.koreanfilm.or.kr/eng/films/index/filmsView.jsp?movieCd=20205001&play=Y)\n5. [The Woman Who Ran streaming details, JustWatch](https://www.justwatch.com/us/movie/the-woman-who-ran)\n6. [The Woman Who Ran, Rotten Tomatoes](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_woman_who_ran)\n7. [The Woman Who Ran (2020) Awards, IMDb](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11697690/awards/)\n8. [The Woman Who Ran, New York Film Festival 58, Film at Lincoln Center](https://www.filmlinc.org/nyff2020/films/the-woman-who-ran/)\n9. [NYFF Review: The Woman Who Ran, Awards Daily](https://www.awardsdaily.com/2020/10/01/nyff-review-the-woman-who-ran/)\n10. [The Woman Who Ran review, The Guardian](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2020/dec/16/the-woman-who-ran-review-hong-sang-soo)\n11. [NYFF 2020: The Human Voice, The Woman Who Ran, French Exit, RogerEbert.com](https://www.rogerebert.com/festivals/nyff-2020-the-human-voice)\n12. [The Woman Who Ran, San Diego Asian Film Festival 2020](https://sdaff.org/2020/movies/woman-who-ran/)\n13. [The Woman Who Ran, International Film Festival Mannheim-Heidelberg](https://www.iffmh.de/festival/programme/films/the-woman-who-ran/index_eng.html)\n14. [막 내린 70회 베를린국제영화제, 홍상수 감독상 수상, 한국국제문화교류진흥원](https://welcon.kocca.kr/ko/info/trend/1941573)\n15. [CMC Pictures Will Release Hong Sangsoo's Berlin Silver Bear Winner 'The Woman Who Ran' in Australia and New Zealand](https://cmc-pictures.com/cmc-pictures-will-release-hong-sangsoos-berlin-silver-bear-winner-the-woman-who-ran-in-australia-and-new-zealand/)\n16. [KOFIC 월간 영화산업 보고서 (2024)](https://www.archivecenter.net/kaitArchive/attach/120000/127418/20250826155807261.pdf)\n17. [Confidences de femmes… les films à l'affiche, Le Monde (2020)](https://www.lemonde.fr/cinema/article/2020/09/29/confidences-de-femmes-arnaques-loufoques-amour-a-distance-les-films-a-l-affiche_6054129_3476.html)\n18. [The Woman Who Ran, The New Yorker (Richard Brody, 2021)](https://www.newyorker.com/goings-on-about-town/movies/the-woman-who-ran)\n\n---\n*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Drama and biographical films (individual works) › Drama films 2020 to 2022*\n\n*Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 21, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*\n\n*Copyright 2026 EdgeChat AI, a subsidiary of Biostate AI.*\n\nLicense: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license\n", "same_as": [], "url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/the-woman-who-ran", "markdown_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/the-woman-who-ran.md", "license": { "name": "Edgepedia Community License 1.0", "url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license", "summary": "Free with credit, commercial use included. AI training is open to everyone. For other uses, organizations over USD 100M in revenue or 100M monthly users license separately.", "spdx": "LicenseRef-Edgepedia-Community-1.0" }, "credit": "\"The Woman Who Ran (도망친 여자)\", Edgepedia (EdgeChat), https://www.edgepedia.org/the-woman-who-ran. Edgepedia Community License 1.0.", "credit_md": "\"[The Woman Who Ran (도망친 여자)](https://www.edgepedia.org/the-woman-who-ran)\", Edgepedia (EdgeChat), [https://www.edgepedia.org/the-woman-who-ran](https://www.edgepedia.org/the-woman-who-ran). [Edgepedia Community License 1.0](https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license).", "credit_html": "\"The Woman Who Ran (도망친 여자)\", Edgepedia (EdgeChat), https://www.edgepedia.org/the-woman-who-ran. Edgepedia Community License 1.0.", "speakable": "The Woman Who Ran is Hong Sang-soo's 2020 South Korean drama, his 24th feature and seventh with Kim Min-hee, following Gamhee visiting three friends; it won the Silver Bear for Best Director at the 70th Berlinale." }