Ji-wan, a middle-aged female director, has no place in her film production company or at home, as her film has failed at the box office. Working on a script for a new movie while feeling pressures from housework and making money is not easy. Ji-wan receives a request from the Korean Film Archive to restore a film to be screened at the opening a commemorative film festival, A Woman Judge by Hong Jae-won, a female director in the 1960s. However, she discovers that the sound cuts out midway, so she reads the script, which itself was found with difficulty, but this time a few of the scenes in the script are missing from the screenplay. Ji-wan follows the director’s footsteps in search of clues about the missing scene and discovers pieces of the film at a local theater where it was screened.
It is an impressive work that overlaps the era of A Woman Judge and Ji-wan’s present. The delicate performance of Lee Jungeun, who plays Ji-wan, stands out. The story of Hong Jae-won in Hommage is based on the real life of Hong Eun-won, the second female director in Korea. [Sunner Si, HAEPARI]