The movie is basically about love. It casts the question of how love changes. In the beginning, people believe their love will last forever but the moment their passion cools, they finally realize that love changes. In the movie, the process of a man and a woman falling in love, developing the relationship, and breaking up is so delicately and realistically depicted that everyone might be able to sympathize with them.
Sang-woo (Ryu Ji-tae) is a sound engineer in his late twenties, living with his father and grandmother in Seoul. He comes down to Kangreung, Kangwon Province to help Eun-soo (Lee Young-ae), a radio program producer in her early thirties, collect nature sounds to be used for her programs. They fall in love and spend winter, spring and summer together, but Eun-soo abruptly bids unilateral farewell to Sang-woo.
From the point of their breakup, the plot is mainly developed from the viewpoint of Sang-woo, who represents heartbroken, "dumped" men. His love for Eun-soo doesn't wane and suddenly changes into lingering affection and tenacity. Moreover, it runs up more passionately than ever before. The painful feelings of Sang-woo, who is tortured by the loss of his love, are displayed very carefully yet concretely. He meddles with his cell phone that never rings; he sits up all night in his car parked in front of her house; he scratches Eun-soo's new car with his car key after following her, who was on a trip with her new boyfriend. But he never roars with anger or yells at her. He just says, "Did ever you love me? How can love change?"
Different from Sang-woo, Eun-soo is quite a complicated character. Her subtle yet sudden change of mind is hard to grab at times and the reason Eun-soo bid abrupt farewell to him leaves much room for controversy, because it is neither clearly explained to her boyfriend nor described in the movie. Maybe her love for him faded. Maybe she never loved him. Maybe she is not ready to become a daughter-in-law of Sang-woo's family, serve his widower father and widow grandmother, and make them kimchi. Maybe she doesn't want to be hurt from a marriage again (she is divorced). Maybe Sang-woo's future is a little too bleak for him to be her husband.
Ryu's tender, gloomy and innocent face might arouse motherly love from women and Lee is attractive enough to captivate male viewers. And both, especially Ryu, seemed to have broadened the scope of their acting ability in a great measure in that they delivered the realistic and believable characters prominently.
Aside from the two main characters, Sang-woo's father and grandmother take important roles. His father never forgets about his late wife and often sings her favorite song "One Fine Spring Day"; his grandmother, who suffers from senile dementia, remembers only the happiest moment of her life when her husband, who later dumped her, loved her. The love of the older generation remains unchanged in contrast to that of Eun-soo and Sang-woo, the younger generation.
Although the movie doesn't deal with dramatic turnover or conflict, it isn't boring. It is filled with humor that triggers a serene smile rather than hearty laughs. Moderate lines and much emptiness, along with the sounds of a wind blowing in a bamboo thicket and barley field, that of wind-bell in a Buddhist temple deep in the mountain and that of the waves of the sea are very well mixed to leave the lingering imagery, elevating the romantic atmosphere of the movie
Given all this, "One Fine Spring Day" is truly excellent work and with this movie, director Hur seems to have firmly established his own realm in the Korean movie industry as a melo-movie director with a unique style.
(2000)
