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

The exquisitely beautiful Korean drama SPRING, SUMMER, FALL, WINTER… AND SPRING, starring director Kim Ki-duk, is set entirely on and around a tree-lined lake where a tiny Buddhist monastery floats on a raft amidst a breath-taking landscape. The film is divided into five segments with each season representing a stage in a man’s life. Under the vigilant eyes of Old Monk (wonderful veteran theatre actor Oh Young-soo), Child Monk learns a hard lesson about the nature of sorrow when some of his childish games turn cruel. In the intensity and lushness of summer, the monk, now a young man, experiences the power of lust, a desire that will ultimately lead him, as an adult, to dark deeds. With winter, strikingly set on the ice and snow-covered lake, the man atones for his past actions, and spring starts the cycle anew. With an extraordinary attention to visual details, such as using a different animal (dog, rooster, cat, snake) as a motif for each section, Ki-duk has crafted a totally original yet universal story about the human spirit, moving from innocence, through love and evil, to enlightenment and finally rebirth.   "Kim Ki Duk, in this exquisitely simple movie, manages to isolate something essential about human nature and at the same time to comprehend the scope of human experience." -- A.O. Scott, NEW YORK TIMES
"Backed by a terrific South Korean/German production crew, Kim Ki-duk is in total control of his material, its rhythms and its tone." -- Kirk Honeycutt, HOLLYWOOD REPORTER
"The triumph of Spring, Summer is that even those of us who don't happen to be Buddhists can catch a glimpse of ourselves in the spinning wheel of hope, destruction, suffering, and bliss." -- Owen Gleiberman, ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY
"Far from a maxim-expounding sermon, the film is a fresh spring of irrational visual pleasure." -- Michael Atkinson, VILLAGE VOICE