DVD: Daytime Drinking

"'Daytime Drinking' is an enter­tain­ing and funny tale about booze and mis­for­tune".

An amus­ing take on social dis­place­ment, exces­sive alco­hol and per­pet­ual bad luck, Noh Young-seok's incon­spic­u­ous "Daytime Drinking" is the filmmaker's first, and to this day, only pro­duc­tion. The immensely indus­tri­ous Noh - who oper­ated as the film's direc­tor, writer, cin­e­matog­ra­pher, com­poser, pro­ducer, edi­tor and even appeared in the back­ground as an actor - com­pen­sates for the picture's ludi­crously low-budget by serv­ing up a dead­pan, min­i­mal­ist com­edy burst­ing with booze and con­stant mis­for­tune.

A dis­con­so­late young man named Hyeok-jin sits expres­sion­less in a Seoul bar whilst his tipsy friends attempt to cheer him up. On a drunken whim, the group, led by Gi-sang, decide that the best way to invig­o­rate their heart­bro­ken, recently dumped friend is to go on a boozy road trip to nearby Jeongseon. Although ini­tially uncon­vinced, Hyeok-jin is soon coerced into going and promises to meet them the next morn­ing.

When he arrives in the freez­ing Jeongseon and is belat­edly informed by Gi-sang that he and the rest of the group are too hun­gover for the trip, Hyeok-jin is forced to press on alone. What fol­lows for him is an almost con­tin­ual con­sump­tion of alco­hol, as well as encoun­ters with a group of bel­liger­ent and eccen­tric char­ac­ters, includ­ing Lan-hee, a can­tan­ker­ous haiku afi­cionado, a per­verted truck dri­ver and a heavy-drinking young cou­ple with an ambigu­ous rela­tion­ship.

As sit­u­a­tions con­sis­tently dete­ri­o­rate for Hyeok-jin, he is soon given reprieve when Gi-sang agrees to come and pick him up from Jeongseon. How­ever, even he may bring some mis­for­tune to his ill-omened friend... Full review