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

Bom yeoreum gaeul gyeoul geurigo bom

2003

Kim Ki-duk

Oh Young-soo, Kim Ki-duk, Kim Jung-yeong, Seo Jae-gyeong ...

7.6

20,674

Drama A wise old monk (Oh Young-soo) is master to a young student, and remains so throughout the changing seasons of the younger monks life. In springtime the young monk is a 5-year-old boy, in summer he is a teenager, in fall he is a 30-year-old man, and in winter he is in mid-life. The master and his student live in a tranquil house that floats in the middle of a pond hidden in a vast woodland. Paddling their row boat to the edge of the ... [+]

	Media	Author	Review
		A. O. Scott The New York Times	"Exquisitely simple (...) The film's lyrical plainness is the sign of a profound and sophisticated artistic sensibility"
		Roger Ebert rogerebert.com	"Rarely has a movie this simple moved me this deeply (...) We fall easily into its premise. We are moved and comforted by its story of timelessness, of the transcendence of the eternal (…) Rating: ★★★★ (out of 4)"
		Peter Bradshaw The Guardian	"It is both serene and gripping, and carries a potent and mysterious charge in its visual poetry (...) A charming and rewarding film."
		Derek Elley Variety	"A sublime, witty, gritty and transcendental movie (...) Pic’s major accomplishment is that it deals with abstract ideas (...) without exoticizing its subject or setting, or boring the audience"
		Peter Rainer New York Magazine	"The impression this movie leaves is profound: Here is an artist who sees things whole."
		J.R. Jones Chicago Reader	"This superb 2003 feature forced me to revise my opinion of the director: wise, gentle, and simply constructed"
		Tom Dawson BBC	"[Ki-duk] impressively fuses style and content. He doesn't judge the actions of his characters or rely on Buddhist sermonising to convey the film's ideas (…) Rating: ★★★★ (out of 5)"
		Noel Murray AV Club	"Kim's beautifully staged morality play affirms that life itself is exquisitely impossible."
		Ed Gonzalez Slant	"Elementary, yes, but profoundly moving (…) Rating: ★★½ (out of 5)"
		Marrit Ingman Austin Chronicle	"Proof that movies don’t always have to be busy to entertain and enrich, this tale of life at a bucolic Korean monastery is at once profound and simple (…) Rating: ★★★★ (out of 5)"

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