Certificate:

Director: Ki-duk Kim

Release Date: 14 May 2004

Main Cast:

Yeong-su Oh … Old Monk (as Young-soo Oh)

Ki-duk Kim … Adult Monk

Jae-kyeong Seo … Boy Monk

Yeo-jin Ha … The Girl

SSAW&S is a pure joy to watch. It’s perfect in its simplicity and is simply perfect! It’s a film of understated beauty both in the visuals and the story, and it’s very hard to put into words just how good it is. It tells the story of a monk from childhood to adulthood and is all about the cycles of life and the journeys we take through it.

It’s visually stunning and so calm and peaceful that it creates a kind of serenity in the viewer (rather like the surface of the lake). There is hardly any dialogue and this just adds to the film’s brilliance.

I can’t even come close to doing justice to the film in this review. It really is an experience and should not be missed.

Rating: