Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring (2003)
"Bom yeoreum gaeul gyeoul geurigo bom" (original title)

This film takes place in an isolated lake, where an old monk lives on a small floating temple. The wise master has also a young boy with him that teaches to become a monk. And we watch as seasons and years pass by.

Director:

Ki-duk Kim

Writer:

Ki-duk Kim

Stars:

Yeong-su Oh, Ki-duk Kim, Young-min Kim

Top 250 #243 | 12 wins & 7 nominations.

Cast

Complete credited cast:
Yeong-su Oh	...	Old Monk (as Young-soo Oh)
Ki-duk Kim	...	Adult Monk
Young-min Kim	...	Young Adult Monk
Jae-kyeong Seo	...	Boy Monk
Yeo-jin Ha	...	The Girl
Jong-ho Kim	...	Child Monk
Jung-young Kim	...	The Girl's Mother
Dae-han Ji	...	Detective Ji
Min Choi	...	Detective Choi
Ji-a Park	...	The Baby's Mother
Min-Young Song	...	The Baby

Storyline

In the midst of the Korean wilderness, a Buddhist master patiently raises a young boy to grow up in wisdom and compassion, through experience and endless exercises. Once the pupil discovers his sexual lust, he seems lost to contemplative life and follows his first love, but soon fails to adapt to the modern world, gets in jail for a crime of passion and returns to the master in search of spiritual redemption and reconciliation with karma, at a high price of physical catharsis...

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Plot Keywords:

monk | lust | seasons | catharsis | love | 

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Genres:

Drama

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated R for some strong sexuality

Details

Official Sites:

Official Site Sony Picture Classics [us]

Country:

South Korea Germany

Language:

Korean

Release Date:

19 September 2003 (South Korea)

Also Known As:

Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring

Box Office

Opening Weekend:

$42,561 (USA) (2 April 2004)

Gross:

$2,380,788 (USA) (8 October 2004)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Korea Pictures, LJ Film, Pandora Filmproduktion

Technical Specs

Runtime:

103 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Ki-duk Kim:  the adult monk at the end of the movie.

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Goofs

When the old monk holds and strokes the cat, the cat's position changes between shots.

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Quotes

Old Monk: Lust awakens the desire to possess. And that awakens the intent to murder.

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Connections

Referenced in The Holiday (2006)
Seen on the shelf in the DVD store

User Reviews

not only cinema, but art

This film is a good example why cinema is called an art - this is not just another movie, but a real piece of art. The pleasure of seeing it belongs to the aesthetics, and it transcends beyond the action and beyond what only happens on screen, or what the characters say and do.

It is both a simple and complex story - the story of a life, catching all seasons of development of man: innocence of childhood - so quickly lost unfortunately, mistakes of the young age, tragedies of maturity , and wisdom coming with the old age.

The film is filmed at one location of a cut-breathing beauty. Beauty of nature is being maximized by the art of the camera. The soundtrack has little dialog, but the expressiveness of the actors makes the dialog useless. You feel the drama, you do not need to hear the words, and the music says more than words.

There are a lot of symbols in this movie, and I probably lost most of them because they belong to the Budhist culture. There are however many other symbols that speak to the European spectator - the cycles of life, the rhythms of nature, the magic figure 4, like the number of seasons of the year, or like the number of parts in classic symphony, the unity of space as in Greek tragedy, and time - one life instead of one day, all give to this creation a wonderful symmetry and equilibrium.

Worth seeing, this is a film that will make the delight of anybody who believes like I do that cinema is an art.