Talk:Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring

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Contents 1 Translation issues 2 Murder 3 Fall and the "traditional" suicide 4 Different Versions ? 5 The Sutra & the statue ? 6 Significance of Animals? 7 Plot summary

[edit] Translation issues

I just finished watching this amazing movie and read the plot synopsis. There are several things that do not match with the plot I just saw -- perhaps the plot was cut differently in the US release? I am going to correct the differences (soon) since this is the English version, but please discuss if necessary... Nathan Beach 04:48, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

The chronology of "Summer" is definitely confused -- do you see other problems? -- Visviva 10:12, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

Just some minor stuff like that -- I'll take a pass at it today and let you review... Nathan Beach 16:52, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

I edited Spring and Summer, but need to get back to work for now (I'll do more later). Please make any adjustments to my revisions that you see fit! Nathan Beach 17:33, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Murder

When I saw the movie for the first time in a cinema I read "a young man killd his wife" written on the piece of newspaper being explained by the subtitles. In fact later I bought the german DVD, where there was no translation of that headline at all. Outgoing of this I showed the movie to many friends, one after an other. Everybody concluded by himself the following: The mother at the end of the film is the young girl of summer. She must be, because they are too intimate, much too familar for being strangers. Which mother would confide her baby to a stranger? Moreover, he'd killed the girl and repeats it in rage under the eyes of his master? Rage against the girl after killing her? This does not seem very logical. So all my friends concluded: he killed the lover of her. They never thought, that he killed the girl. I posted a question on the corean Kim Ki-duk Wikipedia entry some weeks ago without an answer. Could it be just a slipshod translation? Orther 20:42, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

The baby she brings is less than a year old. He had been in prison for several years. So the child cannot be his. People at IMDB are saying that it must be a different woman.--RisingSunWiki 19:44, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Fall and the "traditional" suicide

Monk's way of committing suicide is called "traditional", however it doesn't appear to be a part of buddhist tradition. I've failed to find any mention of such tradition in the net and several discussions at korean and chinese communities of LiveJournal show that this suicide rithual is likely to be the director's imagination. (Anyways, if that's really a tradition, there should be some mention of it's meaning or national roots.)
Nox Noctis 10:26, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Different Versions ?

I edited the end of the plot. The part where the second boy shoves stones into the mouthes of a fish, a frog and a snake was completely missed out, even though it is a very important element in the story, and constitutes the closing scene. Were different versions released ? --Jackaranga 21:21, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

It would seem that there are different versions. I just watched a US version, in which the second boy simply enjoys tormenting a turtle he finds on the deck of the Hermitage. The film ends this way, with the implication that the cycle is repeating itself. --KeithB 13:11, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

In the version of the movie I saw the woman's face was revealed after the monk had retrived her body, he proceeds to unwrap the scarf she had on her face and it is literally shown to be the head of a buddhist statue carved from stone. The rest of the movie continues as presently stated with the exception that the young boy is shown striking a turtle with a stone, and no scenes duplicating the snake, fish and frog incidents from the movie's beginning. 65.7.64.146 16:40, 6 June 2007 (UTC)----JamesD June 6th 2007

More info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0374546/alternateversions The missing sequence is placed just before the final shot of the film. After the shot of child monk in the rowboat, in the cut scenes the child monk is shown putting stones into the mouths of a fish, a frog, and a snake; these scenes emphasize the film's themes of the circularity of life. The film then continues to its final scene of the Buddha statue on the hill.

[edit] The Sutra & the statue ?

I think it should be mentioned that the sutra the master had the young man carve on the floor is actually the Heart Sutra (Prajnaparamita Sutra) and the entire sutra, not just a passage of it since it is probably the shortest Mahayana Buddhist sutras. The sutra is very significant to the story as it is about the Buddhist concept of the Void or Emptiness, which in the movie, is meant to teach the young man to use the very core of Buddhism to absorb his suffering. The sutra also refers to Avalokiteśvara (or Kwan Yin), i.e. the Goddess of Compassion. The master perhaps wants to teach the young man to conquer his rage with the understanding of the Void and a compassionate heart.

It is mentioned in the article that the statue at the end of the movie is a Kwan Yin statue. I agree that fits well with the overall theme of Buddhist compassion and the Heart Sutra, however, I do have doubts that it is indeed a statue of Kwan Yin. First of all, the statue's has a teaching gesture; in Mahayana Buddhism, Kwan Yin is not commonly represented as a teacher (which is more likely to be the role of Sakyamuni Buddha or Amitābha Buddha) but rather as a savior. Secondly, a friend of mine who is a nun ordained in Korea once showed me a very similar statue of Maitreya Bodhisattva. In various Buddhist traditions, Maitreya is believed to be the future Buddha. If the statue is indeed one dedicated to Maitreya, the Buddha of the future, the image of it overlooking the temple (with the present buddha within) at the end of the cycle may have many possible interesting meanings as well.

Then again, whether the status is of Kwan Yin or of Maitreya, it does not matter much to the overall message. However, I think just knowing that the statue could be of either really adds another layer of meanings to a movie already so laden with meanings! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.213.30.2 (talk) 08:02, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Significance of Animals?

There are different animals living on the raft/temple in each season. Spring:dog, Summer:chicken, Fall:cat, Winter:snake, Spring:turtle. What do these animals represent in Buddhism and/or Korean culture, and is there any special significance as they relate to the seasons?

[edit] Plot summary

This article has had an exceedingly long blow-by-blow account of the plot since its earliest days, and in my opinion this has hampered the production of a proper plot summary. Rather than try to trim down this huge 18 kilobyte slab of text (about 85% of the article) I've simply removed it. I encourage those who have seen the film to write a brief summary of the film's plot. --TS 23:55, 18 February 2008 (UTC)