Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter...and Spring

Here’s a turn up for the books. The swaggering bad boy of Korean cinema (I know that’s a bit like saying the knight errant of the Mongolian skate-punk scene, but trust me, you can look him up) turns in an elegiac filmic poem to seasons passing, replete with Buddhist monks and fishponds.
It’s a deviant career twist for a director best beloved for the fishhooks-to-the-face of The Isle and the sexual sadism of Bad Boy. One can only imagine how Kim’s stock as the Korean-New-Wave-Tarantino plummeted with the release of this gentle fable in which an elderly monk teaches his young disciple the wisdom of the Buddha over many years. This grasshopper-style schooling toward ascetic bliss is complicated by the arrival of a teen temptress. Melodrama ensues and lessons are learned about the cyclical nature of things and the noble path to enlightenment.
And that’s a bit of a problem. It’s an ugly, fluffy term, but Spring… is just a bit too Zen garden. Brooks babble, crickets chirp and wind-chimes show no mercy. You can’t help but feel that the ideal audience will have disturbing proclivities involving panpipes and healing crystals.
Less ill-reasoned individuals shouldn’t stay away though. This is a seriously good-looking picture with enough saturated pastoral tones to appease anyone who felt The Scent of Green Papaya too zippy and cavalier. And it isn’t just postcard filler either. The film provides enough by way of both mirth and grim misfortune to ensure you’ll applaud with both hands by the time the gentle Rashomon-inspired denouement arrives.

102mins. Cert IFI members. Opens May 28