Deeply Moving Journey

Newcastle Herald

Monday November 29, 2004

By JIM SCHEMBRI The Age

SPRING, SUMMER, AUTUMN, WINTER . . . AND SPRING (MA)

Director: Kim Ki-duk

Stars: Kim Young-min, Kim Ki-duk

Screening: Showcase

Rating: **** 1/2

IN the opening minutes of Kim Ki-duk's elegant, deeply touching, deceptively simple tale, a young monk-in-training (Kim Young-min) takes great delight in torturing the small animals that reside on the shores of a mountain lake.

His master (Kim Ki-duk), with whom the boy lives on a floating house in the middle of the lake, gives the boy a taste of his own medicine.

Scarred with remorse, he desperately searches for the creatures he tormented, hoping to set them free.

This formative event sets him on a bumpy journey of spiritual growth, real-world experience and renewal that Kim Ki-duk symbolically parallels with the seasons as they alter the landscape of a remote mountainous region.

A singularly beautiful film full of heart, warmth and universal emotional truths about regret, sacrifice, contrition, justice and love.

It's a film you could watch again and again.