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

Best known for picking controversial topics into his films, director Kim Gi Deok is the first South Korean director awarded Best Director at the 54th Berlin Film Festival in February 2004. His new work "Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring" traces the life of a Buddhist monk to draw an analogy between the changing of the seasons and the cycle of life.
The film tells a tale about the life of a Buddhist monk from being a child monk to an aging monk. As he grows, he experiences the desires and emotions in his childhood, adolescence and adulthood. He kills a little animation out of innocence, falls for a girl, attempts suicide after committing murder and eventually becomes an old monk. Paralleled to the nature's cycle of four seasons, the development of his life is adopted to reflect men's general patterns in life.

Shot at a floating temple on a lake in Mt. Chuwang National Park, Kim Gi Deok's latest film "Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring" features the director's debut as an actor casting an old monk in the winter scene of the film. Kim's previous eight works including "The Isle", "Address Unknown", and "Bad Guy" often deal with contentious topics that arouse viewers' contemplation.

Spring - Child Monk takes life of animals out of innocence
A child monk ties a stone to a back of fish. Same plight awaits a frog and a snake. The child monk roams the brook in search of the fish and the frog as his punishment allotted by the old monk.

Summer - Boy Monk in love learns obsession
The monk is now 17 years old. To the lonely hermitage, a girl comes to convalesce. Before long, warm feelings towards the girl sprouts in the boy's heart. Their ripple in the water turns into an act of love.

Fall - Young Monk in agony of malice
The boy returns to the hermitage in the mountains as a young man in his thirties after committing a murder. The old monk whips him finding the young man attempting suicide in front of the statue of Buddha. Old monk order him to etch the Pranja-parpamitasutra, meanwhile he finds peace in his heart.

Winter - Mature Monk in days of enlightenment
The monk, now in his full maturity retraces his steps to the abandoned hermitage in the mountains. A woman wearing a veil visits the hermitage with a baby. She leaves her baby behind and runs away.

And then spring - Another child monk : cycle of four seasons
The old monk living with another child monk is having a peaceful time in the hermitage...the circle of life keeps on.

A young boy lives in a small floating temple on a beautiful lake, together with an elderly master who teaches him the ways of the Buddha. Years later the boy, now a young man, experiences his sexual awakening with a girl who has come to the temple to be healed by the master. The youth runs away to the outside world but his lust turns his life into hell, so he returns to the lake temple to find spiritual enlightenment...