"Christmas in August" - Korean Movie Review

Original Name: 8월의 크리스마스
Year: 1998
Rate: 5.0/5.0

What do you think love is?

Jeongwon, the male main character, is a terminal patient. He looks like he's very afraid of dying soon. He pretends not to be in front of people, but he does because it is natural to fear death. But there is a moment when he doesn't look like that. The only exceptional moment is when he sees Darim.

What is love exactly? How can it make him forget about dying? How could he smile like that in front of her?

What would it feel like if you took a formal portrait of you by youself in preparation for your memorial photo?

Jeongwon is a photographer and he runs a photo studio. It might be quite different from some places you're thinking of because this movie is based in the 1990s. We do take a lot of photos with our phones but people used film cameras at that time, which made it difficult to take photos of themselves by themselves.

He takes a lot of photos of people in this movie and the last one is his formal portrait. I can't imagine what it would feel like because we should make smile when we take a picture, you know. I think the smile he made at the end has a lot of emotions that human being can have in their lives.

The last scene of this movie

This movie ends with this quote.

내 기억 속의 무수한 사진들처럼 사랑도 언젠가 추억으로 그친다는 것을 난 알고 있었습니다.
하지만 당신만은 추억이 되질 않았습니다.
사랑을 간직한 채 떠날 수 있게 해준 당신께 고맙다는 말을 남깁니다.

"I knew love becomes memories in the end like a lot of photos in my memory. But the one with you did not. I'd like to thank you for letting me leave with that love."

It could be a little weird because I translated it by myself, so I leave the original quote. This quote is really meaningful because it's similar to how the male main character talks.

I hope the readers get to know how beautiful love is and that love always exists with you.