In a Nutshell. Mini reviews of movies old and new. No fuss. No spoilers. And often no sleep.

Tuesday, 8 September 2026

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

AKA: 봄 여름 가을 겨울 그리고 봄 (Bom yeoreum gaeul gyeoul geurigo bom)

A monastery floating on the water. An old monk trains a young boy. The film cycles through the stages and seasons of his life. Love, sex, death, and all the hard lessons in between. What I enjoy about this movie is how each section manages to keep you invested and carries a meditative quality with very little dialogue. It remains as powerful as when I first saw it years ago. And the cycle begins anew, as is the Buddhist tradition. Oh, how I wish we could escape it.

5 stones we carry in our heart out of 5

2 comments:

Dr Faustus said...

My brain says I own this, but I've looked and can't find it. (I did find Ki-duk's first two movies on DVD, which I'd previously misplaced, so it wasn't a completely fruitless search.) My lack of organisation would be classed as legendary. Anyhoo, it looks great. I'll get to seeing it someday.

budarc said...

I've always meant to dig further into Ki-duk's filmography. I saw this and 3-Iron more than 20 years ago, but never got around to so many others...