Summer Time
76
7
Story
8
Cast
8
Fun
8
Subs
7
Overall
Mark Edison Flora
October 13, 2003
Movie poster for Summer Time - Review | KFCC
Country South Korea
Genre Drama
Year 2001
Running Time 104
Distributor Enter One
Director Jae-ho Park
Scene from the movie Summer Time - Review | KFCC
Scene from the movie Summer Time - Review | KFCC
Scene from the movie Summer Time - Review | KFCC
Scene from the movie Summer Time - Review | KFCC
Scene from the movie Summer Time - Review | KFCC
Scene from the movie Summer Time - Review | KFCC
Synopsis

Deep within the political unrest of South Korea’s Kwangju Incident, a young handsome student escapes into a small town in which he is only seeking momentary shelter. He finds, however, that this small town is a place of shrouded secrets. A cornucopia of voyeuristic thoughts and a sense of perverse freedom run plentiful within the thin walls of this small town. A seductive housewife lives right downstairs from the student’s bedroom. It is summertime and it is hot and humid and he is just one floor away from her curvaceous body and tantalizing stare...

Scene from the movie Summer Time - Review | KFCC
Scene from the movie Summer Time - Review | KFCC
Scene from the movie Summer Time - Review | KFCC
Scene from the movie Summer Time - Review | KFCC
Review

An official remake of the hot Filipino movie Scorpio Nights, Summertime was a film that aroused more than just my thoughts and interests. It was a film that, though perversely, liberated my mind from the shackles of human practice and let me enjoy a brief dive into a world of pure unscrupulous human instincts. Viewers of all kinds share in this idea. We go to a late Friday night movie at our local cinema house to enjoy two full hours of watching other peoples’ lives become better or lesser than ours. We don’t know that by watching MTV’s The Real World, we are thrown into the mix of voyeurism and its hush-hush appeal. Summertime does not shy away from this idea, yet it explores it in a more sensual and satisfactory manner.

Just don’t think about the whole political mumbo jumbo behind the premise of the story. Okay, for you people who like to look for this stuff in films then by all means, go ahead. You will certainly find more than your regular amount of dosage in this film. I, on the other hand, want to explore more than just what was going on during those times or how it relates to our characters. I feel it more necessary and captivating how the director, Jae-ho Park, manipulated the angles and shots. Each stimulated positioning of the camera was a lustful stroke at your inhibitions. It was like the lead character, Ji-hyeon Kim, was calling out to you in each steamy sex scene, “You want me, come get me.” Ahem, ahem (wiping sweat off forehead) I’m sorry, heh. Didn’t mean to get all soft-core pornographic with you all. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out how wildly carnal and stirring this film becomes.

Keeping my hormonal angst aside, the imagination of the writer and the director of the movie was raw and unnervingly realistic in its approach. Right into the film’s first fifteen minutes, the audience will be invited into a glimpse of a struggling couples’ marriage. Beautiful and sultry, the locked up wife is a gem that is kept away from the rest of world. Its keeper—the slowly decaying husband who lets his own life deteriorate through greed and corruption. Before this, we meet Sang-ho, the student running away from his involvement in the Kwangju Incident. He finds a tiny hole in the floor that seemingly sucks him into a large, grand scale love affair with the sexy woman in pink downstairs. It’s obvious, nonetheless, that the wife will go for the young student as she sees him as her scapegoat into life without persecution and tyranny. However, despite her short-lived instances of freedom with the student, she is reluctant to leave the husband thinking that running away won’t change anything. And so on and so forth. As you’ll see in the ending, more politically in tune with history and upfront than it should be, the director makes it a point to end it the way he ended it. I have no gripes.

I commend the overall impact of the film as it displays eroticism in a just manner. Also, backing up the love triangle is a cast of eccentric characters that add flare and that extra kick in the groin that the director needed to deliver his final ending blow. Ki-wok (Wok-suk Song) is a middle-aged lady who takes matters into her own hands, yet still finds ways to meddle in other’s affairs. Young-Mi (Jeong-yun Bae) is a young and foolish woman who longs to become something better. Also, there’s a wannabe American rock star that always wears disco outfits and sings songs that he can’t pronounce. Then, lastly, there’s the trio of carpenters who seem to cause more trouble than the one’s they’re fixing. These neighborhood junkies fill the biggest role of foreshadowing everything that’s going on in the film. If you get lost, you can easily figure out what’s happening when you just keep a close watch at what these characters are doing.

This film will certainly not gain any awards nor will it get my utmost recommendation. I do, however, ask that you give this movie a viewing and no matter male or female, you’ll find something of interest from this film. Be it the steamy, hot sex scenes that are abundant in the movie or for the film junky in all of you, there is the political background of the Kwangju Incident that you can make references to. I would assume most of male viewers will watch it for the first choice, am I right?

Scene from the movie Summer Time - Review | KFCC
Scene from the movie Summer Time - Review | KFCC
76
Story
Cast
Entertainment
Subtitles
Overall
Mark Edison Flora October 13, 2003
Media Review
Media Review by
Mark Edison Flora
Distributor
Enter One
Media Format
DVD
Region
Region 3
Encoding
NTSC

Man oh man! If you’re thinking of getting this DVD you are in a world of sexual hurt my friend. Boasting crisp anamorphic widescreen and a nice DD5.1 soundtrack, you’ll be engulfed by the steamy scenes. One downer, though, the menu is in Korean only so you’ll have to do some navigating. No easter eggs here, but, if you click on links long enough, you’ll find the notorious SEX SCENES CUTS show! Woohoo! All of the sex scenes in the film are stringed together into one joyous music video with all the deleted takes in it. Heaven I tell you, heaven! Go buy it just for that!