Primavera, Verão, Outono, Inverno... e Primavera (2003)

A boy is raised by a Buddhist monk on an isolated floating temple where the years pass like the seasons.

Director:

Ki-duk Kim

Writer:

Ki-duk Kim

Stars:

Ki-duk Kim, Yeong-su Oh, Jong-ho Kim

15 wins & 8 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
Jeong-yeong Kim	...	The Girl's Mother (as Jung-young Kim)
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:

buddhist | lust | seclusion | isolation | buddhist monk | 

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Genres:

Drama | Romance

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Certificate:

M/12

Details

Official Sites:

Official Site Sony Picture Classics [United States]

Country:

South Korea Germany

Language:

Korean

Release Date:

4 June 2004 (Portugal)

Also Known As:

Primavera, Verão, Outono, Inverno... e Primavera

Filming Locations:

Jusanji Pond, Cheongsong County, North Gyeongsang Province, South Korea

Box Office

Opening Weekend USA:

$42,561, 4 April 2004

Gross USA:

$2,380,788

Cumulative Worldwide Gross:

$10,991,329

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

The inscription on the floor is "The Heart Sutra", one of the most important Sutra of Mahayana Buddhism, written in literary Chinese.

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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: Didn't you know beforehand how the world of men is? Sometimes we have to let go of the things we like. What you like, others will also like."

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Alternate Versions

SPOILER:

• The missing sequence is placed just before the final shot of the film. After the shot of child monk in the rowboat, in the cut scenes the child monk is shown putting stones into the mouths of a fish, a frog, and a snake; these scenes emphasize the film's themes of the circularity of life. The film then continues to its final scene of the Buddha statue on the hill.

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Connections

References O Lamento da Vereda (1955)

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Soundtracks

Jeongseon Arirang
Traditional
Performed by Kim Young Im

User Reviews

A gentler addition to Kim's compendium of sexual obsession

SPOILER: Spring, Summer, Winter, Autumn …and Spring is something of a self conscious art-house film. Possibly Kim Ki-duk is trying to work off his reputation for making movies replete with violent sexual imagery, but he's not fooling anyone. Spring… contains – admittedly in a much more restrained form – most of the themes from his earlier works, The Isle and Bad Guy. Onto this, however, is pasted a hefty dose of Buddhist teaching. Or, from another perspective, an interesting juxtaposition of old and new.

Beginning in the Spring of an undefined year close to the present, the film is set on (and I mean, on) an isolated lake. A child acolyte lives out a life of quiet contemplation, punctuated by occasional acts of petty animal cruelty. His master, a monk, observes his young charge with increasing disapproval and orders him to undo his evil or face the consequences in his own life. It soon becomes apparent that he means this in anything but the figurative sense.

Moving through the seasons, Kim explores the "cycle of life"; with his acolyte experiencing youthful love (or lust), anger, violence and finally acceptance, contrition and peace. The film ends with a new acolyte and a new cycle: implying an endless repetition with subtle variation.

Spring… is not exactly a subtle film, but it is beautifully done. Kim uses silence like few other filmmakers, matching Kurosawa or Bergman at their best. He punctuates these long slow movements with abrupt changes in tempo – such as the arrival of Yeo. The pace quickens and the mood changes. The courtship of the adolescent boy and girl are some of the gentlest scenes in cinema (though culminating in a suitably Kim-like, energetic coupling).

With popular Buddhist and Confucian ideas now so firmly established in cinema (thanks in part to their bastardisation by George Lucas), the ideas in this film aren't exactly going to leave its audience in need of a large glass of perspective and soda (to quote Douglas Adams). Lust leads to possessive urges, which lead to violence; ones violent actions lead on to violence against oneself; peace (and redemption) is found not through approbation, but understanding oneself.

I can't quite dispel the notion that The Isle, with its sly humour and darker plot is a better film, or that Spring… is, if not completely then at least partially, up the bottom of its own artiness. That said, it is a very, very pretty film. Its story is intelligent, if not awe-inspiring, and it is a delightful change of pace from most modern cinema. Most of all, it is probably one of Kim's most accessible films, and I shall certainly be watching it again – if only to see Oh Yeong-su practising his calligraphic art with the tail of a live cat. 7/10.