The Harmonium In My Memory
1998
A charming and moving story about a schoolgirl's first love. Set in the beautiful Kang Won province, the year is 1963 and an uncomplicated time in post-war Korea. Newly qualified teacher Kang Soo-ha takes his very first class in the small village school and approaches his new job with nerve and sincerity. Yun Hong-yeon is in .. Read more
| Starring | Chun Do-yeon, Kim Min-hie, Lee Byung-hun, Lee Mi-yeon |
|---|---|
| Director | Lee Young-jae |
| Genres | Drama, World Cinema |
loading...
The Harmonium In My Memory
A charming and moving story about a schoolgirl's first love. Set in the beautiful Kang Won province, the year is 1963 and an uncomplicated time in post-war Korea. Newly qualified teacher Kang Soo-ha takes his very first class in the small village school and approaches his new job with nerve and sincerity. Yun Hong-yeon is in the 6th grade, but at 17 she is much older than her fellow classmates. Kang's effervescent teaching methods soon inspire Hong-yeon to learn. However, she develops a heart-wrenching crush on her new teacher...
| Starring | Chun Do-yeon, Kim Min-hie, Lee Byung-hun, Lee Mi-yeon |
|---|---|
| Director | Lee Young-jae |
| Studio | PRISM LEISURE |
| Run time | DVD: 1 hr 50 mins |
| Certificate | |
| Genres | Drama, World Cinema |
| Language | DVD: Korean |
| Dubbed | Cantonese |
| Subtitles | DVD: English |
| Released | DVD: 22 Jan 2007 Production year: 1998 |
| Format | DVD |
-
Most helpful member's review
View all -
8 out of 9 people found this review helpful
Another winner from Lee Byung-hun
The story is set in 1960s about a teenage girl from a rural village, having a crush on her new school teacher (played by Lee Byung-hun). The girl, instead of doing her homework, uses her exercise book to confess her feelings for the teacher. But the teacher has his eyes on a female teacher who also started the job at the school at the same time as he did.
I won't say what happens after that, in case I spoil the story, but the film manages to bring the live of these 3 people together in an unexpected way and it's sure to make you laugh and cry at the same time.
This film manages to bring out the softer and gentler side of Lee Bryun-hun (and the film is all the more better because of it), who usually played much harder and tougher characters in Korean TV dramas, like All-In and Beautiful Days.
If you are new to Korean films in general, I'd also suggest trying out 'JSA', 'Brotherhood', 'The Way Home' and 'Christmas in August'.
But, if you like this kind of story then other films worth watching are 'Not One Less' and 'The Road Home' by the acclaimed Chinese director Zhang Yimou, who also made 'The House of Flying Daggers' and 'Hero'. -
Most recent members' review
View all -
4 out of 4 people found this review helpful
Skool Dayz
A recording of Connie Francis singing ‘Don’t Break My Heart’ plays over the main titles, an appropriate choice for this movie of unrequited love and departure which surprisingly is one of the happiest films I have seen in some time. It also serves to date the time of the movie to the early 1960s.
A young teacher, Mr. Kang, arrives from the city to begin his first year of teaching in the secondary school serving a remote part of South Korea. The voice-over narration indicates that it is all taking place in the memory of a former student although the film appears to be happening in the present which can be momentarily disconcerting, at least until the film gets underway which does not take long.
The rest of the staff seem an unprepossessing bunch of over-acting stereotypes until Kang meets the other new teacher, Miss Yang, and is immediately attracted to her. Kang finds that he shares a love of American pop music with the young woman and soon falls in love with her whilst at the same time the student whose memories we are hearing on the voice-over is falling in love with Kang.
When he is introduced to his class Kang is slightly put out to discover what a gang of hicks they are but they get up to all the same kinds of mischief that fertile young minds anywhere in the world can imagine which means that there is an awful lot of incident packed into the film’s 116 minute running time.
And now for the bad news.
The dvd transfer is rough to say the least. There are a few very abrupt cuts which are quite off-putting. The frame rate seems to be well adrift because wherever there is fast movement you get a series of after images reminiscent of Norman Mclaren’s ‘Pas De Deux’ and the subtitles are not all they could be. A couple of times parts of conversations made no sense so you have to guess at the meaning and several times passages, particularly verses of song or scraps of writing were left untranslated, which I suppose is one of the hazards of watching foreign movies. Lastly a few parts of the movie had some heavy colour saturation which made peoples faces turn scarlet.
But despite the problems with the transfer this light and somewhat derivative movie makes for a most enjoyable evening’s viewing, very different from the cynical buffoonery that so often passes for comedy nowadays. -
More like this
View all
Related user collection
a random and yet thoughtful collection (12)
80% from 1 member
Buy from the LOVEFiLM shop
-
-
-
The Harmonium In My Memory
A charming and moving story about a schoolgirl's first love. Set in the beautiful Kang Won province, the year is 1963 and an uncomplicated time in post-war Korea. Newly qualified teacher Kang Soo-ha takes his very first class in the small village school and approaches his new job with nerve and ...
-