Gyungsoo (Kim Sang-kyung) has a mantra: “Even though it’s difficult to be a human being, let’s not turn into monsters.” In Hong Sangsoo’s fourth feature, boundaries separating gamesmanship and truth, fidelity and deceit, are porous. A journey of self-(re)discovery leads a struggling actor from Seoul to the Cheongpyeongsa Buddhist temple on Soyang Lake (in the country’s north), where he is told the legend of a ravishing princess and her reincarnated commoner lover. From there, Turning Gate unravels an episodic string of flings, altercations and more or less stale erotic appointments: sex, in the director’s universe, is ascetic and joyless, a mindless fulfillment of expectation more than any desirable or desirous act. In this and other early Hong endeavors, narrative progression is linear and non-elliptic (in contrast to the obliqueness of his later work) even as certain other trademarks are already present. Drinking scenes abound—including a remarkable exchange under a nightclub’s blood-red lights—as does location shooting and dulcet pillow shots of floating clouds.