The excerpt of the movie’s synopsis says “A beautifully-shot, heart-warming love story … as the summer drew to a close, the couple faced a challenge to their willpower.” I picked “Once In A Summer” because of the words “heart-warming love story”. Over our quick dinner, Cynthia asked what we were watching. You see, the “penalty” of rejecting my call due to a business meeting is that you will have no idea what you get yourself into. Korean, I answered. Oh no, she responded. Don’t worry, it’s not a tear jerking movie, I reassured her. How wrong I was. The words “heart-warming love story” should have been replaced by “heart-wrenching love story”. I kid you not. At the end of the movie, I gave my Movie Review Squad a how-would-I-know expression. “It’s a Korean movie! What do you expect?!”, both Cynthia and Tong Kiat chuckled at my apparent ignorance.
“Once In A Summer” has prompted me to read up a little bit on the history of South Korea. Apparently after World War II, American and Soviet troops had occupied the southern and northern halves of Korea. In 1960, a student uprising in South Korea led to the resignation of president Syngman Rhee, whose government had become autocratic and corrupt. I suspect the movie is set before this historical event when the students were gathering their forces from various parts of the country. (See footnote on amendment.)
Suk-young (Lee Byung-hun), one of the students who found refuge in a remote village where he met the beautiful Jung-in (Su-Ae). Without giving out any spoiler, “Once In A Summer” is less on Suk-young’s journey in finding out what happened to his first love years after (again, from synopsis) and more on how these two people fell in love and faced the political challenges of that time.
It is a beautifully filmed movie and I am especially impressed with the set and costumes that the actors wore that give you a convincing movie that happened in the old days. Acting-wise, oh well, Cynthia must have poured out 1 litre of tear until she has missed out some of the plots because she was too busy crying (direct quote). Lee Byung-hun is not new to me (who can forget his performance in JSA – Joint Security Area?) but Su-Ae is. All I can say is that she can really act out a sad, sad movie.
Overall a good movie for those who love this genre of movie. Below is the official trailer. I have also found a soundtrack of the movie. However, if you plan to watch the movie, you may wish to watch it later as it probably gives out too much spoiler (click here to view).
Edit: Now I do recall that the movie does make a reference to Moon Landing and hence, the story is set in the year of 1969 when Armstrong first landed the moon. The 1960 uprising as above-mentioned refers to the installation of the Second Republic of South Korea. Hence, if the movie does follow the history, it is the Third Republic era when the government sought to reduce political activism by the college students through several educational reforms.
Related Site: Official Movie Site for Once In A Summer.
2 replies on “Once In A Summer – A Sad, Sad Korean Movie”
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA~~~~~ When i was looking at this blog, i nearly laughed till falling onto the floor!!!! =D
i like the “penalty”, the “how-would-I-know expression”, the “too busy crying” episodes… hahaha… honestly, i can visualize the scenes… soooo funny~! hehehe… =)
ai….. poor cyn~~~~ i feel pity for you…. hahaha…. 😛
When i was in Singapore, i had thought of seeing that film. Not until i told benny that i like the actor Lee Byung-hun very much, this film was out of our choices….. HAHAHAHAHA~~!! 😛
Apart from the joke, it seems that we were lucky enough not to choose this film as i guess i would also have my 1 litre of tears poured out during the film…. hehe…. at last, we chose to see ‘Babel’…….. From the class of that film, we thought that we shouldn’t be wrong in our choice…. hmm….. to me, this film is ok la…. it requires a lot of thinking to appreciate while i was too tired for that after my energy-draining interview…. hehe… 😛 but, kind of amazed to find that Singapore has allowed to include those nude scenes in the film now….. not a bad move for an advanced society…
i think certain degree of freedom is necessary for a developed society where people can have room to exercise their own self judgment. Everything being top-down would not be good for self-development. Having said that, i do feel that there has been an abuse of freedom in HK whenever i look at the covers of the HK magazines…. Many of them are so pornographic! This can reflect the social values and i hope our younger generation won’t be spoiled by our media…. honestly, the situation is quite worrying…….
I think Singapore is slowly opening up and while some people dislike the censorship (at times including myself), we often have forgotten that it is the public that set the censorship indirectly. Think about Indonesia. The moment their first issue of “Playboy” (with no nudity by the way) was launched, there were riots everywhere and the publisher has to be closed down. People often neglect the fact that this society is not just made by “us” the individuals but “us” the collective public.
On a side note, I thought this movie would have been more “romantic” than … “Babel”? Ha ha ha … well, when you move to Singapore, I am sure you will have lots of good movies at a much reasonable price (compare that to Hong Kong)!