Architecture 101

Seung-min is an architect. One day a woman comes to his office: Seo-yeon. Fifteen years ago they took the same class at university. Now she wants a house built; she will renovate the old house on the island where she grew up. He accepts. The two begin working together. The narrative moves between the present and the university years: the introductory class in architecture, the first meetings, a sentence left unfinished, and what was misunderstood at the time. Lee Yong-ju writes and directs. Uhm Tae-woong and Han Ga-in play Seung-min and Seo-yeon now; Lee Je-hoon and Suzy play them young. The film was a large commercial success in Korea and among the most watched domestic productions of its year. What the narrative builds is not nostalgia but the unreliability of memory; the two remember the same events differently and the film puts neither of them in the right. The Korea of the nineties is reconstructed in detail: cassette players, the songs of the time and the layout of the neighbourhood. The film uses the building of the house as a measure inside the narrative; renovating the old house without demolishing it is a direct figure. Suzy was known as a singer at the time and came forward as an actor with this part. Its limit is predictability; the second half goes where it is expected and the ending is sentimental. Who it is for: viewers who like Korean romantic drama and narratives on two timelines. Who it is not for: the pace is slow, the emotional register high, and the plot familiar.