# Girls' Night Out (처녀들의 저녁식사)
**Girls' Night Out** (처녀들의 저녁식사, *Cheo-nyeo-deul-ui Jeo-nyeog-sig-sa*) is a 1998 South Korean drama and the directorial debut of Im Sang-soo, following three 29-year-old women in Seoul who talk openly about sex, marriage, and their futures.[1](https://www.biff.kr/eng/html/archive/arc_history_view.asp?kind=history&m_idx=942&pyear=1998) • [2](https://www.koreanfilm.or.kr/eng/films/index/filmsView.jsp?movieCd=19980019) It was released in South Korea on October 3, 1998, stars [Kang Soo-yeon](https://www.edgepedia.org/kang-soo-yeon), Jin Hee-kyung, and Kim Yeo-jin, and won Im the Blue Dragon Award for Best New Director.[2](https://www.koreanfilm.or.kr/eng/films/index/filmsView.jsp?movieCd=19980019)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Korean title / romanization | 처녀들의 저녁식사 / Cheo-nyeo-deul-ui Jeo-nyeog-sig-sa[2](https://www.koreanfilm.or.kr/eng/films/index/filmsView.jsp?movieCd=19980019) |
| Director / screenwriter | Im Sang-soo, his directorial debut[1](https://www.biff.kr/eng/html/archive/arc_history_view.asp?kind=history&m_idx=942&pyear=1998) |
| Release | October 3, 1998, South Korea; 100 minutes; drama, romance[2](https://www.koreanfilm.or.kr/eng/films/index/filmsView.jsp?movieCd=19980019) |
| Principal cast | Kang Soo-yeon, Jin Hee-kyung, Kim Yeo-jin, Cho Jae-hyun, Sul Kyung-gu[2](https://www.koreanfilm.or.kr/eng/films/index/filmsView.jsp?movieCd=19980019) |
| Key crew | Cinematography Hong Kyeong-pyo; producer Tcha Sung-jai (Uno Films)[2](https://www.koreanfilm.or.kr/eng/films/index/filmsView.jsp?movieCd=19980019) • [3](https://iffr.com/en/iffr/2000/films/girls-night-out) |
| Awards | Blue Dragon Awards 1998: Best New Director, Best New Actress; Chunsa Film Festival 1999: Best New Actress[2](https://www.koreanfilm.or.kr/eng/films/index/filmsView.jsp?movieCd=19980019) |
| Festival premiere | 3rd Busan International Film Festival, New Currents section (1998)[1](https://www.biff.kr/eng/html/archive/arc_history_view.asp?kind=history&m_idx=942&pyear=1998) |
## Spoilers
### Story and characters
The film centers on three friends, all 29 years old, who share an apartment and speak frankly about their private lives.[2](https://www.koreanfilm.or.kr/eng/films/index/filmsView.jsp?movieCd=19980019) Ho-Jung is a career woman who owns a design company and enjoys casual sex; her boyfriend Chang-Yoon loves her but cannot restrain her from what the KOFIC synopsis calls a libertarian lifestyle.[2](https://www.koreanfilm.or.kr/eng/films/index/filmsView.jsp?movieCd=19980019) Yeon-I works as a waitress in a hotel lounge, worries about being fired, sleeps with her boyfriend frequently but is uncertain about the future, and hopes to marry soon and settle down.[2](https://www.koreanfilm.or.kr/eng/films/index/filmsView.jsp?movieCd=19980019) Soon-I is a graduate student who has never slept with a man, wants financial independence, plans to run a small restaurant, and dreams of raising a child without marrying.[2](https://www.koreanfilm.or.kr/eng/films/index/filmsView.jsp?movieCd=19980019)
The Korean Film Archive synopsis adds detail on the women's circumstances: Ho-jeong, an interior designer, bought her house and business with inherited money, while Yeon, who works in the service industry and rents a room in Ho-jeong's home, feels perpetually behind; after her boyfriend declares a breakup and she injures her arm and loses three months of income, she joins Soon on a mountain hike, clears her mind, and returns to Seoul to begin living independently in a rooftop room.[4](https://www.koreafilm.or.kr/movie/PM_009384)
The Busan International Film Festival program note describes the three women as representing, respectively, "high sex," "low sex," and "no sex" attitudes, with their unabashed dinner-table discussion reflecting the varying mores of contemporary Korean society; the treatment of space and word play at the dinner table was, in the festival's view, new to Korean cinema.[1](https://www.biff.kr/eng/html/archive/arc_history_view.asp?kind=history&m_idx=942&pyear=1998) The film opens with a long table sequence in which the women describe their erotic dreams without embarrassment, and such conversations recur throughout, covering topics from marriage to orgasms and masturbation.[3](https://iffr.com/en/iffr/2000/films/girls-night-out)
## Production and director
Im Sang-soo was born in Seoul in 1962, majored in sociology at [Yonsei University](https://www.edgepedia.org/yonsei-university), and studied at the Korea Academy of Film Art. He worked as an assistant director on *Kim's War* (1994) and as screenwriter of *The Eternal Empire*, and won the Creation Prix at the Korean Motion Picture Promotion Scenario Competition in 1995; *Girls' Night Out* is his directorial debut.[1](https://www.biff.kr/eng/html/archive/arc_history_view.asp?kind=history&m_idx=942&pyear=1998) He also wrote the screenplay.[2](https://www.koreanfilm.or.kr/eng/films/index/filmsView.jsp?movieCd=19980019) The film was produced by Tcha Sung-jai through Uno Films, shot on 35mm by cinematographer Hong Kyeong-pyo, and handled internationally by SamSung Pictures as world sales agent.[1](https://www.biff.kr/eng/html/archive/arc_history_view.asp?kind=history&m_idx=942&pyear=1998) • [2](https://www.koreanfilm.or.kr/eng/films/index/filmsView.jsp?movieCd=19980019) • [3](https://iffr.com/en/iffr/2000/films/girls-night-out)
## Reception and festival history
The film premiered in the New Currents section of the 3rd Busan International Film Festival in 1998.[1](https://www.biff.kr/eng/html/archive/arc_history_view.asp?kind=history&m_idx=942&pyear=1998) At the 19th Blue Dragon Awards it won Best New Director and Best New Actress, and Kim Yeo-jin also took the Chunsa Film Festival Best New Actress award in 1999.[2](https://www.koreanfilm.or.kr/eng/films/index/filmsView.jsp?movieCd=19980019) • [4](https://www.koreafilm.or.kr/movie/PM_009384) Among the ensemble, the London Korean Film Festival notes, it was Kim, playing the low-key Soon, who gained the most critical praise.[5](https://www.koreanfilm.co.uk/films/girls-night-out/)
Commercially, the film placed among the top 10 Korean films of 1998 by admissions, one of six romance-genre films in that year's top 10.[6](https://eprints.soton.ac.uk/396726/1/Aramchan_20Lee_20FINAL_20E-thesis_20_28LIBRARY_29.pdf)
It then traveled widely on the festival circuit in 2000, appearing at the International Film Festival Rotterdam, the Göteborg International Film Festival, the Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival, the Udine Far East Film Festival, the Buenos Aires International Independent Film Festival (BAFICI), and several others, with later selections including the Hong Kong International Film Festival (2001) and the Paris Cinema International Film Festival (2006).[2](https://www.koreanfilm.or.kr/eng/films/index/filmsView.jsp?movieCd=19980019) • [3](https://iffr.com/en/iffr/2000/films/girls-night-out) Rotterdam's catalog described the film's openness about women's sexual lives as still rare in Korean cinema, and noted that its narrative sex was as confrontational as that of the contemporaneous, controversial *Lies*.[3](https://iffr.com/en/iffr/2000/films/girls-night-out) A Korean-language study of the director records that critics saw a provocative (provoquer) tendency in Im Sang-soo's early works, *Girls' Night Out* among them.[7](https://oak.go.kr/repository/journal/19354/NRF019_2014_v10n3_139.pdf)
## Censorship context
Although government censorship of films was ruled unconstitutional in 1996, the civic body that replaced the state screening authorities, the KPAPC, continued to limit sexual content in domestic releases. In the two years after 1997, both Jang Sun-woo's *[Bad Movie](https://www.edgepedia.org/bad-movie)* and Im Sang-soo's *Girls' Night Out* were re-edited to conform to the committee's suggestions.[8](https://jkma.koreanfilm.org/news2.html)
## Themes and later significance
The film's frank treatment of women's sexual desire was noted as unusual for Korean cinema at the time.[3](https://iffr.com/en/iffr/2000/films/girls-night-out) A Korean film-culture discussion cited in a 2022 volume describes it as showing, for its era, a strikingly unconventional image of women, with characters speaking openly about their sexual desires; it quotes Kang Soo-yeon's line, "Since when did detectives and prosecutors manage my private parts?"[9](https://dgk.or.kr/home/download/%EB%B2%A1%EB%8D%B8%EB%8D%B0%EC%9D%B4%202022%20%EC%9E%90%EB%A3%8C%EC%A7%91.pdf) The London Korean Film Festival also reads the plot's adultery suit as a period marker: until South Korea's criminal statutes on adultery were overturned in 2015, the law could serve as a weapon in the hands of a vengeful spouse.[5](https://www.koreanfilm.co.uk/films/girls-night-out/)
The film has remained associated with its lead. Kang Soo-yeon, the first Korean actor to win Best Actress at an international film festival, died on May 7, 2022, at age 55, and the London Korean Film Festival's 2022 edition included *Girls' Night Out* in its Special Focus on her.[2](https://www.koreanfilm.or.kr/eng/films/index/filmsView.jsp?movieCd=19980019) The Korean Film Archive screened it in May 2023 for the first-anniversary memorial program "Kang Soo-yeon, Film-like and Long."[4](https://www.koreafilm.or.kr/movie/PM_009384)
## References
1. [Girls' Night Out, Busan International Film Festival archive (1998 New Currents)](https://www.biff.kr/eng/html/archive/arc_history_view.asp?kind=history&m_idx=942&pyear=1998)
2. [Girls' Night Out (1998), KOFIC Korean Film Database](https://www.koreanfilm.or.kr/eng/films/index/filmsView.jsp?movieCd=19980019)
3. [Girls' Night Out, International Film Festival Rotterdam 2000](https://iffr.com/en/iffr/2000/films/girls-night-out)
4. [처녀들의 저녁식사, 시네마테크KOFA program page](https://www.koreafilm.or.kr/movie/PM_009384)
5. [Girls' Night Out, London Korean Film Festival](https://www.koreanfilm.co.uk/films/girls-night-out/)
6. [Aramchan Lee, PhD thesis on the Korean film industry, University of Southampton](https://eprints.soton.ac.uk/396726/1/Aramchan_20Lee_20FINAL_20E-thesis_20_28LIBRARY_29.pdf)
7. [임상수 영화 연구 논문 (2014), 한국학술정보 (oak.go.kr)](https://oak.go.kr/repository/journal/19354/NRF019_2014_v10n3_139.pdf)
8. [Korean Film Newsletter #2, July 1999](https://jkma.koreanfilm.org/news2.html)
9. [백델데이 2022 자료집, 한국여성영화인모임](https://dgk.or.kr/home/download/%EB%B2%A1%EB%8D%B8%EB%8D%B0%EC%9D%B4%202022%20%EC%9E%90%EB%A3%8C%EC%A7%91.pdf)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Comedy and romantic films (individual works) › Comedy-drama films*
*Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
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