Spa Night

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Spa Night

2016

1h 37m

Drama

LGBTQ+

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Tomatometer

Popcornmeter

96%

Tomatometer

26 Reviews

60%

Popcornmeter

250+ Ratings

A closeted Korean-American teenager follows his desires and finds more than he bargains for at a Korean spa.

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Critics Consensus

In depicting one man's sexual awakening, Spa Night explores the tension between tradition and individuality with tenderness and compassion.

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Kate Erbland

IndieWire

01/02/2017

B-

Although Seo and Ahn are able to tap into David's confusion and agony -- especially when filtered through the lens of his damningly hopeful parents -- there's never much more to David (or his story) than that.

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G. Allen Johnson

San Francisco Chronicle

09/29/2016

3/4

Writer-director Andrew Ahn has made a confident, assured, low-key debut that's a textbook example of how to make a compelling small-budget movie.

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Sheri Linden

Los Angeles Times

08/25/2016

The assured feature debut by Andrew Ahn is also the story of a young gay man's sexual awakening, and its sensitive lead performance affectingly expresses the tension between tradition and personal identity.

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Joe Lipsett

The Queer Gaze (Podcast)

Dec 1

3.5/5

Ahn's feature debut is beautiful and melancholy. Some may struggle with David's impassivity, but it's arguably the point. Seo is wonderfully captivating in a nearly silent performance.

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David Lamble

Bay Area Reporter

06/09/2020

With its deft, open-ended ending, Spa Night paints a poignant picture of the role gay men and women are playing in elevating and expanding the definition of success in the early moments of this new Millennium.

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Elissa Suh

StageBuddy.com

03/13/2020

[It] takes its time letting his desires to build up, reminding us that this is more than a coming-out coming-of-age story as it alternates and intermixes the struggles of immigrant life, and the particular condemnations of nontraditional masculinity.

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08/22/2020

A terrific indie drama, and great portrait of Los Angeles Koreatown

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05/18/2020

damn that was bad. the plot and the acting.... eh...

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05/17/2020

Boring and slow. This movie could have been 20 mins long

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Fong Kok Hoong F

04/24/2020

This Sundance debut is an intimately observant drama about a son of migrant parents dogging the American dream in Los Angeles' Koreatown agonizing in his own skin of academic ineptness, flustering sexuality and dereliction of filial piety.

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01/04/2019

It's a really surreal experience to see my life reflected so much in a piece of media - to the point that I find myself crying and needing to stop. Andrew Ahn's Spa Night (2016) is subtle and slow with its storytelling but has moments of extremely potent emotion stitched into it that gut-punches you every time. Read full review here: jane-han.com/blog/2017/1/29/qthssllycbm0n0yepnyyrs46fduquk

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Richard Y

@richyung 04/16/2017

Half baked and unexplained story, way too long, full of static shots, could be reduced by half, should be way more explicit with hetaed sexual scenes, horrible photography with cameras in the wrong position mostly, lighting too bright, waste of a good cast, I wonder if the director has actually visited a gay sauna at all, poor film on an interesting topic.

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Andrew Ahn

Director

Joe Seo

David

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Soyoung

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Synopsis

A closeted Korean-American teenager follows his desires and finds more than he bargains for at a Korean spa.

Director: Andrew Ahn
Producer: David Ariniello, Giulia Caruso, Ki Jin Kim, Kelly Thomas
Screenwriter: Andrew Ahn
Distributor: Strand Releasing
Production Co: Strand Releasing
Genre: Drama, LGBTQ+
Original Language: Korean
Release Date (Theaters): Aug 19, 2016, Limited
Release Date (Streaming): Mar 6, 2017
Box Office (Gross USA): $37.5K
Runtime: 1h 37m

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