White Valentine (1999)

"As Time Passes We Miss People Less, But The Loneliness Stays Forever...""

I always try to put a quote from the movies I review, which I feel could stand the test of time, but this one had too many!

"Many People Leaving Means That There Are More People To Miss..."

"As Time Passes We Miss People Less, But The Loneliness Stays Forever...There Are Many People Here To Miss."

...and many more!

First of all, the colors were so VIVID in this movie! It s the first thing that I remembered on the recent re-watch of it.

The cinematography was very good and I loved the relaxed feeling of the small-town atmosphere on this movie set.

I would actually change the primary details and write, " the story of a young girl who finds out that 'life' is what you make it." The story just didn't come together the way it should have, and the ending was terrible, in my opinion.

The young girl, Jeong Min (Jun Ji Hyun) starts to write letters to servicemen (but it never tells you WHY she is writing them!)
She writes a letter to many service men, including one Hyun Jun (Park Shin Yang), who actually makes an attempt to stop in Jeong Min's town and meet her. Even without meeting her, Hyun Jun can tell from her level and style of writing that she is not a teacher with five years of teaching under her belt; but Jeong Min misses her chance to tell the truth to him by being very late for the scheduled meeting!

Jeong Min lives with her grandfather (Jeon Moo Song) who openly criticizes her daily; it is later revealed WHY he is so critical of her, but he never talks to her about this reason at all. No good communication between the two of them.

She finally opens up to him and asks him about her parents and why he was so critical of her father, who seemed to have died in conflict with his father/Jeong Min's grandfather; however, this 'conversation' with her only living family member results in grandfather being admitted to the hospital.

Jeong Min was upset with her grandfather; her grandfather was upset at her;

The only person not upset wIth anyone was the flower shop grandmother (Kim Young Ok) who kinda wanted to 'take care' of grandfather, in his old age! However, she was given only two scenes in the movie.

Han Suk (Yang Dong Geun) was never mentioned by name in the movie, but since the other (younger) support actor was in the military for the most of the movie, and his character name was mentioned once in the movie, Han Suk was Hyun Jun's buddy, the way that Ji-seok (Kim Se-joon) was Jeong Min's friend, especially at the end of the movie.

Jeong Min took longer to develop emotionally as time passed in this movie; but Jun Ji Hyun's performance here is really great, especially in the second half of it!

The support cast and main cast were all amazing; their actions in this movie were good and they supported each other throughout. The movie just didn't have any direction to it.

This was Jun Ji Hyun's first movie and I do not hold her performance to the same standard as her character in Windstruck or other movies: it just seems she was 'wandering' in this movie with no apparent goals in life, besides one.

RE-WATCH VALUE: Not much!

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