In this blog post, I will calmly examine how the film “The Classic” intertwines past and present love to revive the audience’s emotions in the present tense, focusing on its narrative structure and directorial devices.
A film that thawed a frozen heart
All the memories of college life—they undoubtedly held both the joys and pains of my early twenties. Looking back now, those memories were undeniably beautiful. Yet, at the time, the very fact of living in a corner of Seoul alongside those memories felt inexplicably burdensome and exhausting. Looking back, it was likely due to my own weakness, my inability to stand tall and face the world’s challenges.
Then came military service, chosen half by choice, half by circumstance, and the discharge that arrived after time flew by like an arrow. This experience transformed me in many ways, steering me in a direction entirely different from my past self. No, to be blunt, the me of 2000 and the me of 2003 were clearly different people. Yet, if there exists a single thread connecting that past self to my present self within the flow of that time, I think it might be my attitude toward love.
The purity toward love, the heart that chased love with a dewdrop-like, luminous color, was a precious treasure within me that, despite the long passage of time and the changes it brought, was never taken away. And the film that gave me the strength to hold onto that treasure of the heart, and the courage to keep a warm gaze on life, was director Kwak Jae-yong’s “The Classic.”
One winter morning in January 2003, six months before my discharge, I watched a film that thawed my heart, frozen solid by the cold weather and the confines of military life, and rekindled the fiery emotions hidden deep within my chest.
Work Narrative Summary
Sometimes, in ways that defy even common sense, love always arrives disguised as coincidence. Ji-hye and Su-kyung, attending the same university, both fall for Sang-min, a senior in the drama club. However, the impulsive Su-kyung asks Ji-hye to ghostwrite a love letter for her to send to Sang-min. Ji-hye ends up confessing her own sincere feelings to Sang-min under Su-kyung’s name. This letter brings Su-kyung and Sang-min closer together. Ji-hye, consumed by an inexplicable guilt, tries to distance herself from Sang-min, but fate keeps bringing them together.
Meanwhile, Jihye, who lost her father early, lives alone with her mother Juhui, who is traveling abroad. While cleaning the attic to organize her mother’s belongings, Jihye accidentally discovers her mother’s secret box. Through the traces of Juhui’s first love contained within, Jihye gradually comes to understand her mother’s classic style of love. The more she learns, the more Jihye feels the depth and heartache inherent in her mother’s love.
Time rewinds to the summer of 1968. Jun-ha, visiting his uncle’s countryside home for vacation, meets Joo-hee there and is instantly captivated by her. One day, Joo-hee secretly asks him to accompany her to a haunted house, just the two of them. Jun-ha accepts the invitation, filled with both excitement and nervousness. However, a sudden downpour causes their boat to drift away, delaying their return. Joo-hee receives a severe scolding from the elders and is ultimately sent away to Suwon. Without even a proper goodbye, the two part ways, their paths diverging.
After the vacation ends and Jun-ha returns to school, his friend Tae-soo asks him to ghostwrite a love letter. Jun-ha is deeply shocked to discover the recipient is none other than Joo-hee. Yet, unable to tell Tae-soo the truth, he writes the letter in Tae-soo’s name, pouring his own feelings into it. Ultimately, faced with the circumstances around them and the barriers of reality, the two choose to part ways despite their love.
Returning to the present, Ji-hye once again finds herself writing letters as if fate had thrown them her way. She realizes she is following the same path as her mother and her first love, who were strangely similar. Feeling puzzled by this coincidence herself, Ji-hye’s feelings for Sang-min grow even deeper. She tries to give up on Sang-min, who has become her friend’s lover, but ironically, the more she does so, the closer they grow. After experiencing a series of events that mirror what Joo-hee and Jun-ha went through in the past, they confirm their feelings for each other. As if to fulfill the unfulfilled love of the past, Ji-hye and Sang-min finally achieve their love.
Movie “The Classic” Review
Classic. What does it feel like to use this word, which is both timeless and somehow daunting, as a verb? ‘To be classic’. Generally, it might first bring to mind meanings like ‘old-fashioned’ or ‘childish’. But if you’ve seen the film 「The Classic」, the word ‘classic’ might instead come to you with the meanings of ‘fresh’, ‘pure’, or ‘heartbreaking’. And the backdrop enabling this shift in meaning lies precisely in the warm laughter, love, and tears preserved within the 1960s of the film 「The Classic」.
Director Kwak Jae-yong, who sparked a nationwide ‘My Sassy Girl’ craze with 「My Sassy Girl」, returns with a pure, beautiful, yet simultaneously sorrowful love story. “The Classic” is a fresh discourse on fated love, revealing how two seemingly coincidental love stories—the past love of a mother and the present love of a daughter—are actually intertwined by destiny.
The 1960s, recreated through Joo-hee’s past love—with water striders and dung beetles, haunted houses, fireflies, stool samples, student assemblies, student council members, and folk dances—is painted with beautiful and nostalgic memories. Moreover, director Kwak Jae-yong’s homage to Hwang Sun-won’s “The Rain Shower” continues in “The Classic.” It’s not hard to recall a scene from “The Rain” when Joo-hee and Joon-ha take shelter from a sudden downpour in a hut. The fresh, innocent dialogue exchanged between Joo-hee and Jun-ha, whose feelings for each other are just beginning to blossom—lines like “I’m bluffing” and “No, I’m not bluffing”—also naturally transports the audience back to the ‘Classic’ 1960s. The actor who most convincingly portrays 1960s love is Jo Seung-woo as Jun-ha, who truly shines in this film. From his pure expression of love to his anguish as he struggles between love and friendship, Jo Seung-woo masterfully captures the shyness and excitement of an innocent young boy. With his buzz cut and neatly pressed school uniform, Jo Seung-woo infects the audience with the fever of pure love through his innate acting talent. The reason hearts ache after watching 「The Classic」 is that the audience, too, has unknowingly caught his fever. The fact that Joo-hee’s love in the past leaves a deeper impression than Ji-hye’s love in the present also stems from Jo Seung-woo’s presence.
Meanwhile, “The Classic” shares a similar narrative structure and storytelling approach with director Kwak Jae-yong’s previous work, “My Sassy Girl.” The scene where Jun-ha waits in front of Ju-hee’s house, blinking the streetlight, naturally overlaps with the scene where Gyeon-woo watches the back of the eccentric girl entering her house, illuminated by the streetlight. Much like the relationship between the eccentric girl, a successful rich girl, and the unremarkable Gyeonwoo, Joo-hee, the daughter of a Republican Party congressman, and Jun-ha also suffer from an insurmountable class or wealth gap. The structure of the two films is also very similar: the first half emphasizes comedic elements, the middle section focuses on the romance, and the latter part spirals into tragedy. These similarities feel like the director’s own montage of beautiful love and sorrowful love, repeatedly reimagined within his heart, as revealed by his fixation on “Shower.” It mirrors the process where fluttering feelings develop into love, ultimately leaving behind pain. The ‘rain’ that appears repeatedly in every scene can also be interpreted within this context. In this film, where rain falls unusually heavily, the downpours accompanying key scenes function as symbolic devices representing the intertwined emotions of love’s excitement and joy, alongside sorrow and pain. For instance, the scene where Ji-hye and Sang-min run toward the library in the rain, perfectly synchronized with the music playing at that moment, elevates Ji-hye’s joy and the audience’s romantic sensibility to their peak.
So, is 「The Classic」 merely a melodrama prioritizing beautiful, wistful sentiment? Actually, discovering the comedic humor hidden within the film, rivaling that of a comedy, isn’t difficult. Particularly the early and middle sections, packed with witty dialogue and scenes, consistently elicit laughter from the audience. Jun-ha, overcome with joy after meeting Joo-hee, jumps up only to fall flat on his face, then lies down casually propping himself up with his arm. The scene where he brings cow dung for a stool sample, leading to him swallowing thirty-two deworming pills. The folk dance scene where the usually demure Joo-hee performs a bizarre dance, Tae-soo’s final farewell to Joo-hee after seeing her off: “Good work,” and the line “Oh… I don’t know,” uttered by a frightened Joo-hee when Jun-ha scares her in the haunted house, are truly the highlights.
Theme and Plot
Broadly speaking, the film ‘The Classic’ is a story about the gem-like inevitability discovered within chance. The film ‘The Classic’ fully captures both the joy and ecstasy felt by lovers, and the regret and sorrow left by unrequited love. If one were to name the work where director Kwak Jae-yong’s romantic imagination—the essence of Korean melodrama—is most condensed, it would be Hwang Sun-won’s novel ‘The Rain Shower’. This is clearly evident in the film’s parody of the rain scene, a memorable moment from the director’s previous work, ‘My Sassy Girl’. Through this traditional Korean melodrama structure, audiences are invited to dream a somewhat romantic yet warm and happy dream: that pure love still exists, and therefore, the world is still a place worth living in.
Looking more closely at the film, one can discover devices throughout that connect the past and present loves. The love between Joo-hee and Joon-ha in the past, and the love between Ji-hye and Sang-min in the present, are inevitably linked. Therefore, the communication between the present and the past is arguably the most heavily emphasized core element in ‘The Classic’. For instance, the elegant window frames evoking a refined atmosphere are depicted almost identically between the one Joo-hee gazed upon in the 1960s and her daughter Ji-hye’s window frame. This visually demonstrates how love across past and present is connected through a single window. Furthermore, the small log bridge placed by the stream is both the place where Joo-hee and Joon-ha first met and felt love, and the place where Ji-hye and Sang-min confirm their feelings for each other. Furthermore, the necklace, symbolizing the inevitability of love, also functions as a key prop linking past and present.
Moreover, ‘The Classic’ is filled with enigmatic traces of impossible love scattered throughout from the very beginning, and the buildings, props, and situations that appear alongside them faithfully fulfill their own roles as foreshadowing. A prime example is the scene where Joo-hee asks Jun-ha to accompany her to an abandoned haunted house when they first meet. The haunted house is a completely deserted, abandoned building—a space where no hope remains. This can be seen as foreshadowing that the love that began in such a place would ultimately be impossible. Furthermore, movie posters for films like ‘Cleopatra’ and ‘Roman Holiday’ hang in front of the theater on Suwon Street where Joo-hee and Jun-ha meet. The protagonists in both films also ultimately fail to achieve their love, implying that their love will likewise not reach a complete conclusion. The streetlight in the alley, which served as the meeting point for Jun-ha and Joo-hee’s secret rendezvous, ceases to light up the moment their love faces family opposition, symbolically representing the severance of their relationship. In contrast, Joo-hee’s house, though outwardly beautiful, is a gray-toned building erected in front of a retaining wall, clearly representing Joo-hee’s reality of being unable to escape her father’s authority and shadow. Tae-soo, Joon-ha’s friend, often collapsing while walking also serves as a device hinting that he won’t live long. Similarly, Ji-hye’s father also passes away early when Ji-hye was young. Finally, the scene of Ji-hye and Sang-min running across the rainy campus forms a stark contrast to the incident Ju-hee and Jun-ha experienced in the past. The bright background music flowing through this scene subtly hints that while their love holds a deep connection to the past love, it will meet a different, happy ending.
Personal Interpretation
When I first saw this movie’s poster, I thought it was just another run-of-the-mill tearjerker melodrama. Prejudiced by the notion it would be a predictable story forcing tears, I even questioned whether it was worth seeing in theaters. However, my feelings after watching the film completely overturned that expectation.
“The Classic” skillfully shifts between past and present, seamlessly transitioning scenes to naturally draw the audience into the story. The transitions from black-and-white to color, the overlapping of photographs and characters, and the connections through seasons and music transcend simple techniques to break down the barriers of time. This visual harmony allows the audience to experience the past not as a recollection, but with the emotions of the present.
However, the symbolic elements—the note inscribed with Goethe’s poem and the necklace—while enhancing the film’s lyricism, also feel somewhat distant from a modern sensibility.
While their significance as devices linking past and present is clear, they also leave something to be desired in terms of realistic plausibility.
Nevertheless, “The Classic” succeeds in drawing out the audience’s latent emotions by authentically portraying a faint, pure love. In this regard, the film can be evaluated as a highly accomplished commercial movie that accurately identifies and satisfies the audience’s desires.
The Most Memorable Scene in “The Classic”
If asked to name the most memorable scene in this film, it would undoubtedly be the one where Ji-woo and Sang-min run together across the rain-soaked campus. Through this scene, the audience naturally feels the contrast between the past love of Joo-hee and Joon-ha and the present love, accepting the implication of a happy ending within that contrast.
The slow-motion shots, character-centric framing, and the natural element of rain maximize the fresh, pure emotions of youthful love. The direction focuses more on the characters’ expressions and feelings than the campus setting, allowing the audience to experience the flutter and joy of that moment alongside them. This scene represents the emotional peak that runs through the entire film and is arguably the moment that best reveals the meaning behind the title “The Classic.”
