About

While visiting Japan to attend the wedding of his friend Gil-su, acclaimed Korean photographer Bae-hwan meets the beguiling sex worker Ryu and enters an enigmatic love-triangle that threatens to tear his friendship apart. The Depths is a moody, morally complex melodrama that explores queer relationships, repressed desires and intimacy that transcends language.

A Japanese-Korean co-production, the film was as a collaboration between Hamaguchi's alma mater Tokyo University of the Arts and the Korean Academy of Film. Hamaguchi described its genesis in an interview with Cineaste Magazine: "A project called The Depths by Shim Yoon-bo, a Korean producer, was approved, and the shooting was going to take place in Japan. When they were looking for a director, the students at Tokyo University of the Arts couldn't do it, so [the university] approached me." The resulting work showcases Hamaguchi's increasing technical prowess and idiosyncratic thematic interests upon which he would continue to expand in his later films.

Ages 15+