1993 | 108 MIN | Drama, Romance

DIRECTOR LEE Myung-se

CAST KIM Hye-soo, SONG Young-chang, CHO Min-ki

RELEASE DATE January 22, 1993

CONTACT Korean Film Archive

Tel +82 2 3153 2001

Fax +82 2 3153 2080

Email kofa@koreafilm.or.kr

Cinematic iconoclast Lee Myung-se is largely known overseas for his deliriously inventive arthouse action films Nowhere to Hide (1999) and Duelist (2005), works less concerned with plot than they are with theme and motion. Save for his 1988 debut Gagman, which is available to stream on the Korean Film Archive's YouTube channel, Lee's earlier works have largely remained unknown outside of Korea. The crown jewel among those is his 1993 film First Love, a film frequently cited by local critics as one of the masterpieces of 1990s Korean cinema, despite not being immediately embraced by the public.

Following the critical and commercial success of his second film, My Love, My Bride (1990), Lee was once again getting ready to step into the realm of romance. Expectations in the industry were high. His script, about a college freshman in the countryside falling for her guest lecturer from the big city, was well received, and given Lee's proven skill behind the camera, it seemed like another hit was in the offing. This proved not to be the case, with the film being all but ignored by audiences upon its release during the Lunar New Year holidays at the beginning of 1993, selling fewer than 6,000 tickets in Seoul.

As with many of Lee's films, the appreciation for First Love was retroactive but passionate. Thanks to several fierce champions among the local film community, including film critic Kang Han-seop, the film was prominently featured in the year's industry awards. At the Blue Dragon Film Awards, Lee earned the prize for Best Screenplay while Kim was crowned as the year's best actress, her first of three wins on the Blue Dragon stage, later followed by Dr. Bong (1995) and Tazza: The High Rollers (2006). She remains the youngest person to win in the category.

Kim, only 21 at the time of filming but already seven years into a successful career now entering its fifth decade, plays ordinary student Park Young-shin. She is part of a theatre group at her university and she travels to the city with her friend to meet Kang Chang-wook (Song Young-chang), an intellectual who becomes their guest lecturer. At first, Young-shin isn't impressed with Chang-wook, who talks at the girls, rather than with them, cigarettes perpetually dangling from his gesticulating fingers. Much to her surprise, Young-shin begins to develop a crush on this older man.

Lee limns this innocent and unrequited first crush with flourishes of magical realism, letting Young-shin's febrile emotions guide the tone and visuals of the film. Not much happens on a narrative level, as the film fixates on the emotional fireworks that happen within Young-shin, which vividly come to life through Lee's variegated mise-en-scene, the saturated hues of which shine in the Korean Film Archive's recent 4K restoration of the film (available on a KOFA Blu-ray edition alongside My Love, My Bride).

Lee's images represent the inception and gestation of Young-shin's crush, bringing the viewer on an experiential journey tinged by nostalgia. Classic romantic symbols appear, including cherry blossoms lining the streets (although the story was originally going to be set in winter) and a blue fish tank standing at the heart of a coffeeshop, an image revisited by popular works such as Kang Hyeong-cheol's Sunny (2011). In one of the film's most bravura scenes, an alleyway moves through the seasons, as time cools Young-shin's once-hot feelings.

The film is less about romance than the experience of first love, which Lee evokes through his inimitable style. Young-shin's heart races as she cycles down a path and her bicycle suddenly lifts into the air. Many of the film's best scenes happen in thick throngs of mist, a dreamlike aesthetic yanked straight from Lee's subconscious.

Young-shin is one of Lee's great cinematic dreamers, later followed by Gang Dong-won's Min-woo, the protagonist of Lee's dream-logic puzzle M (2007), a spiritual successor to First Love. But the greatest dreamer of all is Lee himself, whose memories of cinema litter the screen. In First Love, feelings and imagination lead the way, guiding us along one of the most singular and influential works of Korean cinema.

Written by Pierce Conran

Edited by kofic