This simple story concerns a young university student who falls madly in love with a pretty local girl while visiting a small rural town outside of Seoul. This immensely well-made romantic melodrama won the Best Film, Best Director, Best Supporting Actor (Oh Dal-su), Best New Actress (Lee Se-eun) and Best Music (Shim Hyeon-jeong) awards at the 15th Chunsa Film Art Awards held in South Korea in 2007.
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Set mostly during a time of turmoil under the dictatorship of President Park Chung-hee and told through a series of flashbacks, the movie starts off in modern time where we meet scriptwriter Lee Su-jin (Lee Se-eun) who works for a TV station which produces a show that helps the participants to locate their long-lost loved ones. In order to get on her boss's good side, she convinces renowned professor Yoon Suk-young (Lee Byung-hun) to appear on their show and so the quest to find the whereabouts of Yoo's lost lover begins, taking them decades back to 1969.
Young university student Yoon Suk-young is from a rich family, but he doesn't care much about politics, while his fellow students are into protesting against the government run by a dictator leader. Instead of working for his father during his vocation, he joins a volunteer student group and sets off to a small village outside of Seoul to help the poor locals. Soon boredom sets in and while cycling aimlessly one day, he comes across Seo Jung-in (Soo Ae) who works in the local library. It doesn't take long for him to immediately fall for the cheerful and attractive young lady and accordingly the courtship begins. However, it takes a while longer before Seo finally takes a shine to the love-sick student.
One fateful night, a fire destroys Seo's library where she also lives and since it is time for the students to return to Seoul, she follows Yoo there to start a new life with him. During this time, South Korea is going through changes and life under President Park regime is chaotic. As it turns out, Seo also has a very dark past; apparently her father had defected to the North when she was still young. So after being wrongly arrested during a student demonstration and in order to save them from imprisonment, they have no choice but to go their separate ways.
Without a doubt, “Once in a Summer” benefits greatly from the two likeable main leads but heartthrob Lee Byung-hun is the main draw card here and his boyish charms work wonders, especially during those early clumsy wooing scenes right down to the more serious and heart-wrenching moments. Equally capable is Soo Ae who has no problem in portraying her character's innocent and sympathetic qualities, moreover, they both look the part as a handsome and believable couple in love. Furthermore, their relationship that slowly blossoms is both natural and convincingly realized, while their tense and heartbreaking scenes which take place in the interrogation room are impressive. Elsewhere, supporting actor Oh Dal-su, has a memorable role as Yoo's classmate and provides some light comic relief.
Story wise, there is nothing truly new here; this is the kind of formulaic romance drama South Korean cinema is famous for, made intentionally aiming at and to please the mass audiences. Conversely, Joh, through his lense, manages to show us a sense of life in a small village in Korea of the past thereby creating a tangible nostalgic atmosphere. The parts where the students install electricity for the villagers and the open air movie show are indeed nice touchesThe use of soft dreamy soundtrack to set the moods further enhances the production; similarly, the inclusion of Roy Clark's ballad “Yesterday When I was Young” really nails it.
Overall, this is foremost a love story which through a serious of politically related dramatic incidents turns out to be more heart wrenching and tear jerking. It is still entertaining and the charismatic Lee and Soo are a definite plus.
