Product Description

A tiny Buddhist monastery floats on a raft amidst a breathtaking landscape tended to by a solitaryMonk. Into this serene setting comes a young child who will become the Old Monk's protege... and so begins a lifelong journey of hope despair passion and redemption in a film hailed as "A triumphof sheer cinematic craft" (Rene Rodriguez Miami Herald). From the brash actions of youth through the dawn of adolescence and the fullness of adulthood one man's life lessons are learned as seasons pass his emotional inner life changing as the landscape around him. Award-winning Korean writer/director/editor Kim Ki-duk has crafted a lushly exotic yet universal story about the human spirit and its evolution from Innocence to Love Evil to Enlightenment and ultimately to Rebirth that Elizabeth Weitzman of the New York Daily News calls "A beautifully composed canvas the sort of film one falls into resurfacing at the end with great reluctance."SPECIAL FEATURES: Previews Anamorphic Widescreen Presentation Audio: Dolby Digital 5.1 (Korean) English French SubtitlesSystem Requirements:Running Time 103 Mins.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: FOREIGN/LATIN Rating: R UPC: 043396041271 Manufacturer No: 04127

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2681 in DVD
• Brand: Sony
• Released on: 2004-09-07
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
• Formats: AC-3, Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: Korean
• Subtitled in: English, French
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: 1.00 pounds
• Running time: 102 minutes

Amazon.com
Working miracles with only a single set and a handful of characters, Korean director Kim Ki-Duk creates a wise little gem of a movie. As the title suggests, the action takes place in five distinct episodes, but sometimes many years separate the seasons. The setting is a floating monastery in a pristine mountain lake, where an elderly monk teaches a boy the lessons of life--although when the boy grows to manhood, he inevitably must learn a few hard lessons for himself. By the time the story reaches its final sections, you realize you have witnessed the arc of existence--not one person's life, but everyone's. It's as enchanting as a Buddhist fable, but it's not precious; Kim (maker of the notorious The Isle) consistently surprises you with a sex scene or an explosion of black comedy; he also vividly acts in the Winter segment, when the lake around the monastery eerily freezes. --Robert Horton

From The New Yorker
A Buddhist monk (Oh Young-soo) and his disciple, a young boy, live in an enchanted setting-a temple set at the center of a very still lake high in the mountains of Korea. The boy grows up, makes mistakes, and receives punishments from his master, but all is calm and orderly until a young woman enters the scene-a disruption that leads to violence and, eventually, to renewal. Kim Ki-duk's movie has a formal grace that is nearly intoxicating: the cinematography revels in the exquisite quiet of the lake, with its natural abundance rendered in a palette of infinitely subtle grays and pale blues. The formal perfection makes one willing to overlook an implicitly priggish rejection of sexuality and the normal glories and temptations of the world outside. And the movie's piety is redeemed by a vagrant and rather subversive sense of humor that keeps the rituals of Buddhist discipline fresh and humanly appealing. In Korean. -David Denby
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker

Customer Reviews

3 stars maybe
Movie was cheesy. It was a slow movie (which I enjoy slow movies ),however the speed of the movie was only slow when nothing was happening and rushed to get to a point at other times (inconsistent speed). A film's rate is dependant on the rate of divulging information, plot, character etc.. I think it's supposed to be an artistic film but, I think artistic or not you can't sacrifice important elements and cinematography isn't everything, it certainly can't carry the weight of an entire film. That being said lets move on.

It's a morality tale, but the problem is that you see it coming a mile away. The child actor was terrible except when he was crying, that was his only believable scene. It only starts to become interesting when the boy grows up, but then later it becomes cheesy after a few unnecessary turns in the plot to bring him back. The end is beyond cheesy, a cheap excuse to show some martial arts, and some supernatural things which were thrown in (transformation into snake). The only good thing about this movie is that at times you can follow the story, the cinematography is amazing, and music is good. There was too much awkwardness (scene cuts, unexplainables, and unnecessary character introductions) to call this masterful. I would say this was rough draft turned into a film.

Simple Beauty
My rating is really a 3.5 but I will round it up to a 4. Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter is a movie worth watching. The cinematography is beautiful throughout. The storyline is interesting and contains some fundamental lessons about life and its cycles. The script is also what fell short for me however. It was a little too simple for my liking. Given the lack of dialogue, or other alternate persuaders, it was difficult for me to believe the young woman was attracted to the young man in the first place. Additionally, the jump to her ultimate fate was too quick. While the wise old man made reference to the outcome earlier in the film it seemed too convenient. I was hoping for some dramatic revelation at the film's conclusion but it never came for me. The film ended as it began...quietly, in keeping with the wise old man's nature.

Worth watching
This is not a typical film, it delves into Buddhist philosophy and can take you to far away places... a good film