In this blog post, I’ll explore human desire, karma, sin, and repentance, as well as the cycle of life, through Director Kim Ki-duk’s film ‘Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter… and Spring’. I’ll also analyze its structure as a coming-of-age film, the characteristics of its characters, the direction of key scenes, and the symbolic meanings of the animals that appear in each season, while discussing the emotional impact the film leaves on viewers.

The Stone on the Cute Novice Monk’s Back, and the Weight of Karma

I don’t particularly like movies featuring babies. Whether the young actors’ performances are awkward or outstanding, movies with young children are simply too cute, so I end up focusing more on the child than on the plot. However, the novice monk in “Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter… and Spring” is truly adorable. The scene that maximizes the young monk’s cuteness is when he struggles up the mountain, groaning under the weight of the stone on his back. The way he wobbles as he climbs is so adorable that it makes me want to rush over and give him a big hug. One of the reasons I love this film is precisely because of that cute young monk.
But the biggest reason I’m drawn to this movie isn’t simply because the young monk is cute. It was my first time experiencing the weight of the stone hanging on the cute young monk’s back—that is, “karma”—so poignantly. I’d occasionally heard adults talk about “karma,” but I hadn’t realized just how much fateful power was imbued in that word.
“Karma” is a concept that originates in Buddhism. It refers to human actions and the consequences they bring, and is closely related to Buddhist teachings on cause and effect and reincarnation. The idea is that if you accumulate good karma, good results will follow, and if you accumulate bad karma, you must bear the corresponding negative consequences. The film illustrates this concept of karma through the simple yet powerful symbol of a stone.
A cute young novice monk is playing by a stream when, as a prank, he ties stones to the bodies of a fish, a frog, and a snake. An old monk, watching this, ties a stone to the boy’s own body as well—to teach him the preciousness of life and the meaning of karma. He then tells the boy to find the animals he tormented and untie the stones. The old monk explains that if even one of the animals has died, the boy will have to carry that burden of karma for the rest of his life. The young monk sets out to find the animals, but the fish and the snake are already dead. Ultimately, the young monk will have to live with that burden of karma. In fact, after growing up, the young monk in the film is unable to overcome his desires, commits murder, and leads a miserable life. While it cannot be definitively stated that this is due to the karma from his childhood, the two events do not feel unrelated.
Film critic Lee Dong-jin points out that the chain of karma in this film does not connect a single person’s past and present lives, but rather emerges from the relationship between two different people separated by a time gap of several decades. At first glance, the identical actions of the two young monks in the film may bring to mind the Buddhist concept of reincarnation, but it is closer to the meaning of “repetition” rooted in the lament that humans are born with an inherent demonic nature.
It is also worth considering the fact that the one who initiates the evil karma is a young child. The premise that karma begins with the misdeeds of a child—who cannot be held fully accountable for their actions—resembles the Christian worldview that humans are born bearing original sin. From this perspective, the stone, which functions as the film’s most important symbol, corresponds to Christian original sin. This is why film critic Lee Dong-jin interprets this film as a Christian film borrowing Buddhist forms.
Whether one finds the essence of “karma” in Christianity or Buddhism, I couldn’t help but become engrossed in this film from the moment I felt the power of “karma.” That was because, in that instant, I felt the weight of my own bad karma resting on my shoulders.

A Man’s Lifetime Captured in the Four Seasons

“Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter… and Spring” is a film depicting the life story of a man. As the title suggests, it depicts his life—from boyhood and youth to middle age and beyond—in accordance with the flow of the seasons: spring, summer, fall, and winter. The film is set in a beautiful hermitage floating on a lake. Against the backdrop of the hermitage and the surrounding landscape, which change with the seasons, the man’s life unfolds naturally.
The protagonist of “Spring” is an innocent young novice monk living with an elderly monk. The boy, who gathers medicinal herbs and lives in harmony with nature, plays with animals and, as a prank, ties stones to fish, frogs, and snakes. The elderly monk, having witnessed this, ties a stone to the boy’s body while he sleeps. Upon waking, the young monk is scolded by the elderly monk and sets out to find the animals to which he had tied stones the day before. However, upon realizing that his prank has already killed the animals, he weeps bitterly. This is the moment when the young boy first confronts the consequences of his own actions.
By the time “Summer” arrives, the boy has grown into a young man. Yet his innocent and pure-hearted nature remains unchanged from his childhood. One day, a sick girl comes to a hermitage cut off from the outside world. She is a figure from the secular world that the young man has never encountered before. Living alongside the girl, whose skin is so white it seems translucent, the young man gradually matures and falls in love with her. However, unable to suppress his physical desires, he sleeps with her. After she leaves the hermitage, the young man follows her back into the secular world.
In “Autumn,” a man who committed murder because he could not bear his wife’s betrayal flees to the hermitage. His eyes are filled with distrust and rage. The bloodstained blade the man brought with him reveals just how intense his anger is. Ultimately, the man resolves to die and attempts suicide, but after being severely beaten by Master No, he comes to his senses. Master No writes the Heart Sutra in the courtyard and instructs him to carve the characters with a knife. Even when detectives arrive at the hermitage to arrest him, he is still carving the Heart Sutra. Finally, after carving all the characters and being taken away by the detectives, there is no longer any trace of anger in the man’s eyes. After seeing the man off, the old monk tidies up the hermitage and meets his own death aboard a boat.
When “winter” arrives, the man, now released from prison, returns to the desolate hermitage. He carves a Buddha statue out of ice to enshrine the old monk’s relics and toughens his body in the bitter cold. He then climbs the mountain, carrying a stone much larger than any he had carried as a young novice monk. One day, a woman with her face covered comes to the hermitage and leaves a child behind. The child’s mother tries to slip away in the middle of the night but falls through the ice on the lake and drowns. The woman’s true identity remains a mystery. The image of the child crawling across the frozen lake, calling out for his mother, is particularly poignant.
Then “spring” returns once more. Before long, the child the woman left behind has grown into an “incredibly cute” young monk, and the man has become an elderly monk. The child plays alone, placing pebbles into the mouths of animals. The sight of the child laughing heartily is strikingly similar to that of the man in the past. Although the season has returned to spring, the audience’s feelings as they watch that spring can never be the same as they were at the beginning.

Director Kim Ki-duk’s Cinematic World and “Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter… and Spring”

Director Kim Ki-duk’s films have long received wildly divergent reviews. However, his ninth film, “Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter… and Spring,” was recognized for its outstanding cinematography and composition. While general audiences focused on the film’s beautiful scenery and story, film experts examined how it differed from his previous works and what significance those changes held.
Choi Gwang-hee, a reporter for the film magazine “Film 2.0,” explains that the central theme running through Director Kim Ki-duk’s body of work has been the violence and cruelty that exist within the human psyche or are imposed by irrational social structures. Director Kim Ki-duk has historically depicted violence in violent ways, and this directorial style has placed him at the center of constant controversy. In that regard, it is only natural that the stylistic approach in his ninth film, ‘Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter… and Spring’, has become noticeably softer than before, leading to assessments that the director has changed.
However, just because his style has changed does not mean the substance of his message has changed. Reporter Choi Gwang-hee observed that Director Kim Ki-duk continues to explore the primal cruelty of human beings—who live by inflicting pain on others—and their quest to find peace within that reality. Buddhism may be the most fitting framework for revealing this artistic theme. In fact, it almost feels as though Director Kim Ki-duk has only now, belatedly, borrowed the framework of Buddhism.
Film critic Jeong Han-seok also focuses on the film’s landscapes and spaces. He explains that ‘Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter… and Spring’ constructs the depth of its landscapes in a different way than before. The hermitage floating on the water connects to Director Kim Ki-duk’s signature approach to setting, which has long centered on isolated worlds. However, unlike his previous works, which created imagery in opposition to nature, this film conveys a distant, contemplative gaze that seeks to capture the beauty of the natural landscape.
That said, Director Kim Ki-duk’s signature cinematic devices have not disappeared. Inside the small hermitage, there is a door without a wall, and the characters enter and exit through it or step beyond its boundaries. The director’s distinctive stylistic traits remain vivid in these spatial compositions and the characters’ actions. Based on the words of the elderly monk in the film, Jung Han-seok interprets that the events the characters experience unfold within a natural flow, and their outcomes pave a path leading from sin to salvation. The film’s message is that such a path exists for everyone and can begin at any time. The fact that Director Kim Ki-duk appeared in ‘Winter’ himself adds a layer of self-reflection to the work.
Meanwhile, film critic Lee Dong-jin, while evaluating the film as a successful Kim Ki-duk production, takes a critical view of the ‘Winter’ segment. In particular, he points out that the scene where the man takes off his shirt and engages in prolonged physical training, as well as the ascetic act of dragging a rock up a mountain, feel like overly explicit symbols. He also views with disappointment the director’s decision to reinsert the scene of a frog tied to a rock and struggling from his childhood, which serves to emphasize the “chains of karma” to the audience. Furthermore, he assesses the use of “Jeongseon Arirang” playing in the background as lacking in musical and cinematic imagination. Although Director Kim Ki-duk explained that the music came first and the scene was filmed to match it, critic Lee Dong-jin believes this approach attempts to convey the film’s meaning in an overly direct manner.
Thus, opinions on the same film are divided. To some, it reveals a deeper cinematic world of Director Kim Ki-duk, expressed through the forms of nature and Buddhism; to others, it highlights the limitations of a directorial style that overemphasizes symbolism. However, even amid these differing assessments, it is clear that this film embodies the director’s long-standing preoccupations with human desire, cruelty, and the yearning for peace.

Character Development and Life Changes Through the Lens of the Coming-of-Age Film

Coming-of-age films share a common narrative structure. A special person or event enters the life of a protagonist living an ordinary existence, putting the protagonist to the test. The protagonist then undergoes arduous and difficult circumstances—a sort of rite of passage—and through this experience, either returns to daily life or emerges transformed into a better version of themselves.
“Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter… and Spring” can also be viewed as a typical coming-of-age film with this structure. However, while most coming-of-age films focus on adolescence or a specific stage of growth, this film uses a biographical structure to depict growth spanning the entirety of a human life.
A man living peacefully with an elderly monk in a hermitage meets a beautiful young girl one summer day. Falling in love with the girl, the man, torn by desire and inner conflict, eventually flees to the secular world. Yet what awaited him there was not sweet love, but the pain of betrayal. He is driven to the brink, committing murder and even attempting suicide. However, with the old monk’s help, he calms his anger, gains enlightenment, and finally returns to the peaceful hermitage. The narrative of a coming-of-age film—beginning in everyday life, facing trials and tribulations, and returning transformed—unfolds through the life of this one man.
The protagonist is both the most ordinary and the most extraordinary of characters. He spent his childhood and youth in innocence, but, blinded by lust, he left for the secular world. His greatest period of wandering occurs in middle age. In the film, he commits the grave sin of murder, but even without going that far, many people tend to live by compromising with the world once they reach middle age. In that sense, the man is an ordinary person not much different from us. However, the way he repents for his sins and returns to the temple shows that he is a special person. While many people end their lives having compromised with the world, this man returns to the temple and finds peace of mind.
Master No is a god-like figure. In the latter half of the film, he even displays supernatural abilities, seeming to see right through the protagonist’s heart. He stays by the man’s side from childhood through adulthood, helping him recognize his mistakes, and when the man returns after his wanderings, he helps him get back on his feet. In this sense, Master No can be seen as playing the role of a helper found in mythology.
The woman is a character who puts the man to the test. While she cannot be considered evil, she is clearly an object of temptation, as evidenced by the way she beckons the hesitant man to come into her bed. The woman’s appearance marks the moment when the man first confronts worldly desires. However, it remains unclear whether the girl who appeared in the summer is the same person as the wife the man later killed. The film does not explicitly explain this relationship, and I felt that this point, too, is worth pondering.

The Anger and Detachment Revealed in a Scene from “Autumn”

Among the film’s many scenes, the part I’d particularly like to analyze is the opening of “Autumn.” It is a scene where the man, having committed murder, returns to the hermitage and converses with the old monk; the cinematography that conveys the characters’ emotions is striking.
First, the man, having arrived at the hermitage by boat, looks around. Next, a cat is shown meowing. The shot shifts to the man and the Elder Monk facing each other in conversation. Soon, the man’s face is shown, and he recounts the events he experienced in the secular world. At this point, the Elder Monk does not appear on screen; only his voice is heard. Next, the old monk’s face appears, and he calmly advises the man to let go of his attachments. The screen then shows the man’s face, filled with anger, followed by the old monk’s face. Afterward, the scene returns to the initial composition where the two are facing each other, and their conversation continues. At the end of the scene, the cat reappears, meowing by the pond.
There is a consistent framework to the composition of this scene. By placing the image of the meowing cat at the beginning and end of the dialogue, the scene is brought to a complete whole. Furthermore, the scene begins by calmly showing the Monk and the man in conversation, then alternates between their faces. Through this composition, the audience can clearly compare the two characters. The man, consumed by anger, and the Monk, who has transcended desire, are distinctly set apart.
The background also plays a crucial role here. The nature, adorned with autumn foliage, remains steadfast in its place, unaffected by the emotions of the two men. Both the man, filled with rage, and the elderly monk, who calmly observes that rage, are ultimately situated within that landscape. The contrast between the intensity of human emotion and the detachment of nature makes one realize just how fleeting human life is in the face of nature.

What significance do the animals that appear in each season hold?

Various kinds of animals appear in this film. There are goldfish living in the pond inside the hermitage, as well as the frog, snake, and fish that the young monk tormented. However, what I would like to focus on are the animals that appear in the space where the man and the elderly monk live, serving to connect their lives. This is because I believe the animals that appear in each season are not merely background elements or props, but play their own distinct roles in revealing the characters’ personalities and the film’s meaning.
First, the animal that appears in “Spring” is a puppy. The young monk holds and pets the puppy, and they play and run around together. Dogs are generally considered the animals closest to humans. They are very loyal and follow people closely. Given these characteristics, a puppy is indeed the perfect animal for the young monk. Watching the puppy scamper about evokes a bright and cute feeling. The young monk’s innocent demeanor and the puppy’s lovability blend together naturally.
In “Summer,” a chicken appears. Chickens are considered hardworking animals that crow early in the morning. However, more than that, they are also a delicious food we enjoy eating. It seems clear that the old monk is raising this chicken as a pet. Seeing the old monk sitting in the yard feeding the chicken, one can sense his affection for the animal. Yet, the man steals one of these chickens and runs away. While it’s unclear whether he ate it or sold it, his actions reveal his desires. The chicken, an object of affection for the elderly monk, may serve as a means for the man to satisfy a different kind of desire. In this light, it becomes clear why a chicken—and not a puppy—appears in “Summer.”
A cat appears in “Autumn.” Behind the monk, we can see the face of a cat wrapped in a cloth as it crosses the lake. Later, when I saw the cat’s tail being put to good use as a brush to write the Heart Sutra in the courtyard, I smiled and thought, “Aha!” In fact, one could probably use a dog’s tail or a chicken’s feather for writing. But why, of all animals, does a cat appear?
I believe it has to do with the cat’s animalistic characteristics. Cats are generally perceived as calm, quiet, and independent animals that get along well on their own. They are thought to be accustomed to being alone and not to feel particularly lonely even without an owner. The man in the film also eventually finds peace of mind and becomes more tranquil. In this regard, I felt that the cat’s nature and the man’s transformation were similar. Furthermore, the cat’s ability to exist on its own allows us to anticipate Master No’s death and the time that follows, during which the man must live alone.
Finally, the animal that appears in “Winter” is a snake. Snakes have long been regarded as auspicious creatures. This is particularly meaningful in the film because the snake appears alongside Master No’s death. The snake, wandering through the deserted hermitage, even slithers into the clothes that the old monk had taken off. Seeing this, one gets the impression that the old monk has been reborn as a snake. Although the film does not explicitly explain this, the scene allows for such an interpretation.
The presence of the snake once again highlights the Buddhist undertones of the film as a whole. This is because the concept of reincarnation aligns with the Buddhist doctrine of samsara. However, it also brings to mind elements of our traditional shamanism. The belief that the soul of a deceased person can inhabit another living being is found not only in Buddhism but also in folk beliefs. In fact, when considering this scene in isolation, interpreting it from the perspective of traditional folk beliefs or superstition feels more convincing than through the lens of Buddhist samsara.
As such, the animals appearing in ‘Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter… and Spring’ are not mere extras or props; each plays a distinct role. And those roles are by no means trivial. The puppy in spring, the chicken in summer, the cat in fall, and the snake in winter prompt us to reflect on the atmosphere of each season and the characters’ states of mind, and at times, they seem to foreshadow upcoming events. I believe that recognizing the presence of the animals in the film and examining their significance serves as an important clue to understanding the film.

Reflecting on the Meaning of Life Amid the Repeating Seasons

‘Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter… and Spring’ is a film that reveals new insights and invites reflection on its meaning the more you watch it. At first, my attention was drawn to the cute young monk, but as I looked at the stone hanging from his back, I began to contemplate the weight of karma. Through the story of a man who succumbs to desire, commits a sin, repents, and returns to his rightful place, I was led to reflect on human growth and the cyclical nature of life. Furthermore, I discovered unique meanings not only in the characters’ actions but also in the nature and animals surrounding them.
This film doesn’t feature particularly striking characters or dialogue, nor does it rely on flashy visuals. Yet the true charm of this film lies in the fact that, even without these elements taking center stage, the director’s message is conveyed in its entirety. The “qi” (energy) emanating from the tranquil lake and the cozy mountain slopes draws the viewer deeply into the film. As you watch a man’s life unfold against the backdrop of the four seasons, you find yourself reflecting on both his life and your own.
In particular, the image of the young monk who appears when spring returns lingers in the mind for a long time. The man, now an elderly monk, gazes at a child who resembles his younger self, while the child, just like the man did in the past, teases the animals and laughs innocently. The return of spring signifies both a new beginning and the possibility that one’s past life may repeat itself. And as I watch this scene, I am once again reminded of the weight of karma that humans bear throughout their lives.
Although it’s one of my favorite films, it’s also a profound and challenging work, so I found it quite difficult to decide to analyze it. It seemed as though even a single scene contained multiple layers of meaning, and there were many parts that left me wondering what to make of them and how to interpret them. Nevertheless, by examining the film’s structure, characters, scenes, and the significance of the animals one by one, I was able to reflect on things I hadn’t noticed when I first watched it.
Even if my analysis of this film is a bit clumsy, I hope I’ve at least conveyed the fact that ‘Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter… and Spring’ is truly a “good movie.”