봄 여름 가을 겨울 그리고 봄

春天，贪玩的童僧拿着石头，绑在鱼、青蛙和蛇身上，捉弄着小生灵们。老僧（吴永洙饰）发现后，用同样的手法惩罚他，告诫他不可胡来。
　　夏天，十七岁的少僧（金永敏饰）为久居深山的修行日子苦闷不已。有一天，一名患病少女（何丽珍饰）在母亲陪同下，来到寺庙拜佛求平安，并留下疗养。少年开始忍受不住异性相吸所带来的诱惑……
　　秋天，青年在外面杀人后重返寺庙，请求谅解。老僧命其刻写心经，去掉罪孽，同时，追捕逃犯的警察也赶到寺庙……
　　冬天，服完刑期的中年男子（金基德饰）回到山中寺庙，重新开始修行苦练。一名妇女突然探访寺庙，并留下了一个男婴，希望能被收留。
　　之后，又一个春天到来。Spring, Summer, Winter, Autumn …and Spring is something of a self conscious art-house film. Possibly Kim Ki-duk is trying to work off his reputation for making movies replete with violent sexual imagery, but he's not fooling anyone. Spring… contains – admittedly in a much more restrained form – most of the themes from his earlier works, The Isle and Bad Guy. Onto this, however, is pasted a hefty dose of Buddhist teaching. Or, from another perspective, an interesting juxtaposition of old and new.

Beginning in the Spring of an undefined year close to the present, the film is set on (and I mean, on) an isolated lake. A child acolyte lives out a life of quiet contemplation, punctuated by occasional acts of petty animal cruelty. His master, a monk, observes his young charge with increasing disapproval and orders him to undo his evil or face the consequences in his own life. It soon becomes apparent that he means this in anything but the figurative sense.

Moving through the seasons, Kim explores the "cycle of life"; with his acolyte experiencing youthful love (or lust), anger, violence and finally acceptance, contrition and peace. The film ends with a new acolyte and a new cycle: implying an endless repetition with subtle variation.

Spring… is not exactly a subtle film, but it is beautifully done. Kim uses silence like few other filmmakers, matching Kurosawa or Bergman at their best. He punctuates these long slow movements with abrupt changes in tempo – such as the arrival of Yeo. The pace quickens and the mood changes. The courtship of the adolescent boy and girl are some of the gentlest scenes in cinema (though culminating in a suitably Kim-like, energetic coupling).

With popular Buddhist and Confucian ideas now so firmly established in cinema (thanks in part to their bastardisation by George Lucas), the ideas in this film aren't exactly going to leave its audience in need of a large glass of perspective and soda (to quote Douglas Adams). Lust leads to possessive urges, which lead to violence; ones violent actions lead on to violence against oneself; peace (and redemption) is found not through approbation, but understanding oneself.

I can't quite dispel the notion that The Isle, with its sly humour and darker plot is a better film, or that Spring… is, if not completely then at least partially, up the bottom of its own artiness. That said, it is a very, very pretty film. Its story is intelligent, if not awe-inspiring, and it is a delightful change of pace from most modern cinema. Most of all, it is probably one of Kim's most accessible films, and I shall certainly be watching it again – if only to see Oh Yeong-su practising his calligraphic art with the tail of a live cat.

4444(创建者)