Always

Song Il-gon's film brings two closed-off people together. So Ji-sub plays Cheol-min, a former boxer who has almost stopped speaking after something that happened in the ring and now works as a parking attendant. Han Hyo-joo plays Jung-hwa, who works in telemarketing and is slowly losing her sight. The best thing the film finds is the way they meet. She cannot see him and he does not talk, so the relationship forms around voice and presence rather than looking or speaking. Song Il-gon uses every instrument the melodrama offers, and the silence of the first half keeps it in balance. In the second half the film settles into the classic Korean melodrama template: sacrifice, illness, separation and a fight. For some viewers that turn is its weakest stretch, and for others exactly what they came for. It opened the Busan International Film Festival in 2011 and was released on 20 October 2011. Who it is for: viewers who like Korean melodrama and love stories carried by two performers. Who it is not for: anyone who resents emotional manipulation, which the film performs openly in its second half.