Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter and Spring (2003)

This film is something else. It is simple yet powerful. The message is clear even in the absence of talking. With minimal dialogue and only five major characters, Ki-duk uses the title's seasonal metaphor to track the phases of life and the lessons brought by the experiences of childhood, adolescence, adulthood, and old age. It is a gloriously simple concept that interacts with its setting -- a floating, quiet monastery in the middle of Korea's pristine mountain forests -- to ask crucially important questions about the power of individual will and the repercussions of our choices. It is majestic without grandiosity, heartbreaking without sentimentality. It gives voice to the age-old aphorism that how we spend our days is how we spend our lives--we can ruminate, discover, and assess their own journeys.
SPRING, SUMMER, FALL, WINTER...AND SPRING is a symphonic poem. Lizst develope dthe concept in music and Ki-duk appears to have found a way to do so in film. The film is suffused but not overpowered by the Buddhist philosophies that guide the lives of the Old Monk (Oh Young-Soo) and his charge, a preschool-age child who grows to manhood and beyond over the film's two-hour running time. The pair, who remain nameless throughout, tend and live in the sturdy but aged monastery that floats on a large raft in the middle of the lake. As a young boy (Kim Jong-Ho), he plays in streams and learns that life is a series of interconnecting points, whether it is the medicinal herbs he picks or the animals he finds to play with. As he reaches his teenage years (now played by Seo Jae-Kyung), his tranquil life with the Old Monk is upset by the arrival of a sick girl (Ha Yeo-Jin), whom they must nurse back to health. To tell more might ruin what is a slowly revealing flower of a story, blossoming into an astonishing portrait of two men and the common but difficult bond they share spiritually and personally. When bad things befall the one, the other is duty bound to respond. The conclusion is dramatic and surprising, yet it works. Life is a circle, but it is not a neat and pretty cirlce. It has rough edges and unexpected turns, even in an isolated and peaceful place. The film is sensational and the film maker is a man of his own making.