The Classic

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The Classic Promotional Movie Poster
The Classic
Directed by	Kwak Jae-yong
Produced by	Shin Chul
Written by	Kwak Jae-yong
Starring	Jo In Seong Son Ye Jin
Release date(s)	January 30, 2003
Running time	127 min
Language	Korean
IMDb profile
Korean name
Hangul:	클래식
Hanja:
Revised Romanization:	Keulraesik
McCune-Reischauer:

The Classic is a Korean movie originally released in 2003.

[edit] Plot

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

The film tells the parallel stories of a mother and daughter who fall in love. The story of the mother is told partially in flashbacks.

The movie starts in the present day. The daughter, Ji-Hae (Son Ye Jin), is cleaning up around her house when she comes across a box full of old letters that detail the story of her mother Joo-Hee (also played by Son Ye Jin in a dramatic tour de force). Periodically in the movie, Ji-Hae reads one of those letters, which starts a flashback scene in which the story of the mother is told. These flashbacks are intertwined with Ji-Hae's own story, in which she falls for a fellow student involved in the school theater.

The movie details both relationships. The mother visits the countryside as a student one summer, and meets Joon-Ha (Jo Seung Woo). Unfortunately, as is often the situation in romance, a third party prevents the realization of their love. She has been engaged to marry Tae-Soo through her parents while Tae-Soo is also the best friend of Joon-Ha. Tae-Soo soon find this out and helps Joon-Ha and Joo-Hee write letters to each other using Tae-Soo's name. When Tae-Soo's father finds this out, he is beaten and Tae-Soo unsuccessfully tries to hang himself. Guilt-ridden by this, Joon-Ha joins the army and goes to Vietnam. There he loses his eyesight. when he returns back to Korea, he meets with Joo-Hee and tries to not let her show that he is blind. He tells her that he has already gotten married. But she finds out that he is blind and later she marries Tae-Soo. In the last flashback, Joo-Hee is with her daughter Ji-Hae at the river where she met Joon-Ha when she meets some people who ask her to fulfill his dying wish- to scatter his ashes into the river. She finds out from them that he married after she got married and that he bore a son from that marriage.

Meanwhile, Ji-Hae's story is also unfolding. She also has a friend as an obstacle to her romance with Sang-Min (Jo In Seong). Fortunately, her romance has a happy ending. (In the end, she and Sang-Min both realize that their parents were in love with each other. Ji-Hae is Joo-Hee's daughter with Tae-Soo with Sang-Min is the son of Joon-Ha. This revelation is revealed when Sang-Min gives the necklace given to his father by Joo-Hee to Ji-Hae).