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

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

Kim's movie conjures a sense of spiritual discipline as suspenseful as it is stunning to watch and exhilarating to contemplate.

San Francisco Chronicle Carla Meyer

A masterful portrait of the seasons of a life.

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

This meditation on spirituality, loneliness and accountability could touch your heart's core.

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

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.

LA Weekly Scott Foundas

The film unfolds at a deliberate pace, with a soundtrack occupied less by dialogue than by the sounds of water flowing and crickets chirping. And if you listen carefully enough, you might just hear the sound of one hand clapping.

Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan

As meditative and beautiful as its title would indicate. What is a surprise is the extent to which it manages to be involving if you can put yourself on its wavelength.

The New York Times Dana Stevens

An exquisitely simple movie. Mr. Kim manages to isolate something essential about human nature and at the same time, even more astonishingly, to comprehend the scope of human experience.

New York Magazine Peter Rainer

Kim exalts nature--life’s passage--without stooping to sentimentality. He sees the tooth and claw, and he sees the transcendence. Whether this is a Buddhist attribute, I cannot say, but the impression this movie leaves is profound: Here is an artist who sees things whole.

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

This beautiful -- and beautifully controlled -- film is also an object lesson in how to hypnotize an audience.

Washington Post Desson Thomson

Truly a movie for world audiences with a message that's devastatingly subtle.

Austin Chronicle Marrit Ingman

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.

Baltimore Sun Chris Kaltenbach

Spring, Summer values life, beauty and even human fallibility, ascribing to humanity a nobility we neglect at our own peril.

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

This delicate, transporting movie, which keeps dialogue to a minimum to tell its story primarily through images, is also a triumph of sheer cinematic craft that mirrors its characters' contemplative natures while extolling the virtues of lives simply led.

Boston Globe Ty Burr

The film is as spare and unvarnished as a wooden temple floating on a lake, but its reflections run deep, and it can ripple your thoughts for months.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

Using perfectly composed shots to amplify an emotionally resonant story, the film successfully argues that "artistic" films do not have to be boring.

Premiere Glenn Kenny

Beautiful, lyrical, but not in the least bit wimpy. [May 2004, p. 18]

Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington

An exquisitely realized film; a little gem, it keeps its conflicting or varying themes of tranquility and violence, sacred and profane love, recklessness and wisdom, in almost perfect balance.

Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey

Proves that the most local story is sometimes the most universal, the simplest tale sometimes the most complex.

Dallas Observer Staff (Not credited)

This subtly entrancing paean to seasons earthly and emotional is to the developing male psyche what "Whale Rider" is to the female, and deserves equal acclaim.

The Hollywood Reporter Kirk Honeycutt

Kim Ki-duk keeps dialogue to a minimum and actions simple in what is virtually a two-character piece. Humor arrives organically, often resulting in hearty laughs.

Variety Derek Elley

A sublime, witty, gritty and transcendental movie reflecting one man's life journey.

Village Voice Michael Atkinson

Far from a maxim-expounding sermon, the film is a fresh spring of irrational visual pleasure.

Chicago Reader J.R. Jones

Wise, gentle, and simply constructed.

New York Daily News Elizabeth Weitzman

Where Kim's best-known movie, "The Isle," was a stomach-churner, this beautifully composed canvas is the sort of film one falls into, resurfacing at the end with great reluctance.

New York Post V.A. Musetto

In the end, inner peace is found by all - on screen and in the audience.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Noel Murray

It IS a little obvious, but that's the way it goes with spiritual enlightenment. The film's lessons are plain--spoken aloud, even--and deal with the close relationship between what can be shed in this life and what binds people to the world in spite of their best efforts to purify.

TV Guide Ken Fox

Exquisitely crafted drama.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Liam Lacey

Looking like some gorgeous fan painting come to life, Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter . . . and Spring is pictorially spellbinding.

Washington Post Phillip Kennicott

Though lacking in any particular narrative surprise, the film nevertheless takes the viewer completely by surprise several times.