Title: 클래식 Keulraesik
English Title: The Classic
Country: South Korea
Language: Korean
Year: 2003
Cast:
- 손예진 Son Ye Jin
- 조인성 Jo In Seong
- 조승우 Jo Seung Woo
SYNOPSIS
Ji Hae is a quiet college student who is good in writing. Her friend Soo Kyung asks her to write love letters (for her) to give to Sang Min, a quiet guy in their theatre class.
Ji Hae writes the letters for her friend but she's devastated when Soo Kyung and Sang Min begins dating each other. Ji Hae also likes Sang Min and she confessed her feelings in her letters to Sang Min, written in Soo Kyung's name.
While cleaning around the house, Ji Hae finds a box of letters that belonged to her mother, Joo Hee. Ji Hae reads through the letters and finds out about her mother's past.
Joo Hee went to the countryside one summer, where she met Joon Ha. They explore the area together and before Joo Hee leaves, she gives Joon Ha a necklace.
However, Joo Hee is already promised to Tae Soo, who is a good friend of Joon Ha. Tae Soo knows of the attraction between Joo Hee and Joon Ha, so he helps the two to communicate with each other by telling Joon Ha to sign his letters with 'Tae Soo' instead of his own name.
But Tae Soo's parents insist on the marriage between Tae Soo and Joo Hee. They eventually get married and have a daughter together, which is Ji Hae. Joon Ha also moves on and marries another woman.
Ji Hae tries to avoid Sang Min to lessen her pain of seeing him dating another woman, but Sang Min seems to be everywhere she went. One day, he confesses his feelings to her and tells her he had liked her for such a long time.
Ji Hae travels to the countryside where her mother met Joon Ha and Sang Min accompanies her. She tells him about her mother's tragic past. Sang Min cries and shows Ji Hae a necklace, the same necklace that Ji Hae's mother Joo Hee gave to Joon Ha. It turns out, Sang Min is Joon Ha's son.
REVIEW
I have made a really long synopsis for The Classic but I really wanted to show the parallelism between the daughter's present life and her mother's past.
I'm a little bothered by the movie's premise that although Joo Hee and Joon Ha were not able to be together, Joo Hee's daughter Ji Hae and Joon Ha's son Sang Min will have a chance to make it work. I find it somewhat disconcerting and uncomfortable although I'm not sure why.
Nonetheless, I did enjoy the romantic scenes and this movie has a lot of those. My favorite is what I call the 'umbrella scenes'.
Ji Hae walks along the courtyard when it suddenly rains. Since she doesn't have an umbrella, she takes shelter under a tree. Sang Min suddenly appears by her side and offers to escort her where she needs to go. The two of them run all over the university on their way to Ji Hae's destination, taking cover under Sang Min's coat so they wouldn't get wet.
Ji Hae is in a coffee shop where she could clearly see the tree where she took shelter in the rain. The shop lady tells her about Sang Min and how he purposely left his umbrella one rainy day for some strange reason and rushed out into the rain with just his coat. Ji Hae finds out that their encounter in the rain was no coincidence.
I think it would have been better if the flashback scenes, the scenes between Joo Hee and Joon Ha, where filmed in black-and-white or sepia. It would be more melancholic that way and it will be easier to tell the scenes belonging to the two different times apart since everything is shown simultaneously.
Son Ye Jin plays both the parts of the mother Joo Hee and the daughter Ji Hae. I thought it would be better if she only played one character, the daughter Ji Hae perhaps, and another actress played the part of the mother Joo Hee. After all, two different actors played the roles of Joon Ha and Sang Min.
Alike:
사랑비 Love Rain
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클래식 The Classic
