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34
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68
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52
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48
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50
Other Boleyn Girl, The
90
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44
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46
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36
Remember the Daze
47
Semi-Pro
24
Sex and Death 101
76
Shotgun Stories
63
Signal, The
62
Spiderwick Chronicles, The
12
Strange Wilderness
45
Tyler Perry's Meet the Browns
59
Under the Same Moon
40
Vantage Point
55
Walker, The
37
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46
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60
What Would Jesus Buy?
51
Wild West Comedy Show: 30 Days & 30 Nights - Hollywood to the Heartland
17
Witless Protection
90
Persepolis
78
Control
76
Shotgun Stories
70
Caramel
68
Honeydripper
67
In Bruges
66
Darfur Now
66
George A. Romero's Diary of the Dead
65
Grace Is Gone
64
Chronicle of an Escape
63
City of Men
63
Signal, The
62
Spiderwick Chronicles, The
60
What Would Jesus Buy?
59
Under the Same Moon
59
Definitely, Maybe
57
Flawless
57
Hammer, The
55
Walker, The
54
Charlie Bartlett
52
Be Kind Rewind
52
My Blueberry Nights
51
Wild West Comedy Show: 30 Days & 30 Nights - Hollywood to the Heartland
50
Other Boleyn Girl, The
49
Cassandra's Dream
48
National Treasure: Book of Secrets
47
Boarding Gate
47
Semi-Pro
46
Finishing the Game
46
Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins
46
Bonneville
46
Rambo
45
Tyler Perry's Meet the Browns
44
Rails & Ties
44
Chaos Theory
42
Bucket List, The
41
Funny Games
41
Drillbit Taylor
40
Vantage Point
38
Flash Point
37
Air I Breathe, The
37
War, Inc.
36
Remember the Daze
36
Eye, The
35
Jumper
35
Flakes
34
10,000 B.C.
29
Fool's Gold
24
Sex and Death 101
17
Witless Protection
12
Strange Wilderness
9
Meet the Spartans
xx
Jack and Jill vs. the World
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
|
Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring
Sony Pictures Classics
FILM:
MPAA RATING: Not Rated
Starring
Yeong-su Oh,
Jong-ho Kim,
Jae-kyeong Seo,
Young-min Kim,
Yeo-jin Ha,
Dae-han Ji,
Jung-young Kim, Ki-duk Kim,
and
Ji-a Park
Entirely set on and around a tree-lined lake where a tiny Buddhist monastery floats on a raft amidst a breath-taking landscape, this film is divided into five segments with each season representing a stage in a man's life. (Sony Pictures Classics)
| GENRE(S): |
Drama
|
Foreign
|
| WRITTEN BY: |
Ki-duk Kim
|
| DIRECTED BY: |
Ki-duk Kim
|
| RELEASE DATE: |
DVD: September 7, 2004
Video: September 7, 2004
Theatrical: April 2, 2004
|
| RUNNING TIME: |
103 minutes, Color |
| ORIGIN: |
South Korea / Germany |
| LANGUAGE(S): |
Korean (with English subtitles) |
Original title "Bom yeoreum gaeul gyeoul geurigo bom"; Audience Award, 2003 San Sebastián International Film Festival

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
100
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.

100
San Francisco Chronicle
Carla Meyer
A masterful portrait of the seasons of a life.

100
Charlotte Observer
Lawrence Toppman
This meditation on spirituality, loneliness and accountability could touch your heart's core.

91
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.

90
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.

90
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.

90
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.

90
New York Magazine
Peter Rainer
Kim exalts nature--lifes 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.

90
Wall Street Journal
Joe Morgenstern
This beautiful -- and beautifully controlled -- film is also an object lesson in how to hypnotize an audience.
90
Washington Post
Desson Thomson
Truly a movie for world audiences with a message that's devastatingly subtle.

89
Austin Chronicle
Marrit Ingman
Proof that movies dont always have to be busy to entertain and enrich, this tale of life at a bucolic Korean monastery is at once profound and simple.

88
Baltimore Sun
Chris Kaltenbach
Spring, Summer values life, beauty and even human fallibility, ascribing to humanity a nobility we neglect at our own peril.

88
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.

88
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.

88
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.

88
Premiere
Glenn Kenny
Beautiful, lyrical, but not in the least bit wimpy. [May 2004, p. 18]
88
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.

88
Philadelphia Inquirer
Carrie Rickey
Proves that the most local story is sometimes the most universal, the simplest tale sometimes the most complex.

80
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.

80
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.

80
Variety
Derek Elley
A sublime, witty, gritty and transcendental movie reflecting one man's life journey.

80
Village Voice
Michael Atkinson
Far from a maxim-expounding sermon, the film is a fresh spring of irrational visual pleasure.

80
Chicago Reader
J.R. Jones
Wise, gentle, and simply constructed.

75
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.

75
New York Post
V.A. Musetto
In the end, inner peace is found by all - on screen and in the audience.

70
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.

70
TV Guide
Ken Fox
Exquisitely crafted drama.

63
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.

60
Washington Post
Phillip Kennicott
Though lacking in any particular narrative surprise, the film nevertheless takes the viewer completely by surprise several times.


The average user rating for this movie is 8.4 (out of 10) based on 30 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
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