Review Wanee & Junah

For Monday's Review, as promised, I share my thoughts on the quiet, yet forceful, relationship drama Wanee & Junah.

Wanee & Junah (2001)
Directed by Yong-gyun Kim
Starring Hee-seon Kim, Jin-mo Ju, Seung-woo Cho, and Kang-hee Choi
In Korean with English subtitles
Film: 4.5 stars (out of 5)

This was a movie I had only seen once before, back in 2005. It has stuck with me all that time because I enjoyed it so much even though I didn’t get around to a repeat viewing until just this week. I was curious if it would still have the same effect on me, and you can see by my rating that it did.

The movie’s story is actually rather simple, focusing on the relationship between the two leads of the title. Not much happens in the way of plot. There’s no adventure or melodrama or thrills. Nobody is dying of cancer. Even when Wanee’s cute friend (So-yang) from their school days shows up, the wedge that is introduced is so not the obvious one. Having said that, it’s not the most accessible film for a casual audience. The director doesn’t make it easy. But that was okay with me. I enjoyed the challenge of figuring out what made the characters tick rather than having it spoon-fed to me.

So, what’s it about? Twenty-somethings Wanee and her boyfriend Junah have been a couple for about a year, and recently living together in a quiet small town not too far from Seoul. It’s not the countryside, but it’s not the big city. Both are artistic types (she, an up-and-coming artist for an animation studio and he, a scriptwriter trying to make his first breakthrough). Wanee is a bit further along in her career than Junah is in his, but there doesn’t seem to be any real competitive fire between them.

And in fact, that’s the impression we get of their relationship. Whatever fire there might have been has fallen into mundane comfort as far as we can tell. I purposely called this a "relationship drama" rather than a "romantic drama" because there's nothing all that "romantic" about the relationship. Wanee calls most of the shots, as it’s her family home that they both live in. Junah moseys around the house and yard, writes his script, and not much else it seems. But they both seem content in this zone of familiarity. They occupy a room, doing their own things, content to just share proximity. We never see any real sexual affection, unless you count holding hands on the sidewalk; and the one time she calls him “honey,” his only comment, completely non-judgmental, is that she hasn’t called him that since like forever. It’s telling (and more than a bit ironic) that when So-yang shows up she notes that their relationship is more like brother-sister than lovers.

That’s not a whole lot to hold a movie together, unless “something happens” or we learn a bit more about what makes the characters tick. We get a little of the former, and a lot of the latter and that, to me, is what makes the film a special one.

The “something happens” is that So-yang arrives in town to stay with Wanee for a short while. Wanee has just found out from her mom that Wanee’s brother is returning to Korea for a visit, from a break in his studies abroad. We see from flashbacks that Wanee, her brother, and So-yang hung out a lot together during their school days, and it’s quickly evident why So-yang is hoping that the brother drops by for a visit.

But he never does.

Oh, but is his presence felt. It’s funny that the one character who has the least amount of screen time in some way is the most forceful presence in the movie. His part of the story is told in flashback and we come to gradually understand a lot more about Wanee. (I really liked Wanee and connected with her character and all the difficult issues she is holding in her heart.) Junah, too, has to deal with the knowledge of newly discovered information.

I mentioned before that the director does not make it easy. This was his first film (and he never really did much else other than The Red Shoes, which I thought was a very effective horror/drama), and he had some stylistic touches that in a lesser movie would have me rolling my eyes. Believe me, if I had not been totally caught up in the story and the characters, I would have had little patience for some of the filming techniques. But as it is, I found myself appreciating and even applauding them. But you have to be on your toes. On more than one occasion people are shown onscreen and it takes a few moments to realize they’re not really there. It’s just the way the director is showing a memory, or a long-distance conversation. Some of the scene transitions were inspired. For example, the first time we are tossed into a flashback, the transition scene shows Junah resetting a clock. In another scene, the director uses the thump-thump sound of a record player needle bouncing against the end track of the LP as a proxy for a beating heart, in a scene where, yes, a heart would be beating in a combination of fear, longing, and anticipation. A more perfect scene could not have been filmed.

So, all in all a quiet little movie with good (and REAL) characters, dawning (not spoon-fed or sledgehammered) understandings in the viewer, special touches, and clever filmmaking (besides the flashbacks and such, the movie is bookended with animated scenes from a childhood incident that are effective in their simplicity). It would have been easy for the film to turn to spectacle (Junah falls for the friend! The brother shows up! Wanee will have a cursing, crying, screaming meltdown!), and I’m so glad that it never did.

The DVD is Region 0, although it says Region 3 on the case. The Korean 5.1 audio is fixed, and you have the choice of Korean or English subtitles. The subtitles are glitchty in a few spots but nothing egregious. The Special Features (which are not subtitled) include cast/crew information (Korean text only), a music video, 6 or 7 deleted scenes, a featurette showing the live action performances from which the animated portions of the film were taken, and behind-the-scenes “making of” footage/interviews.

I'm halfway through a re-watch, and will wait to post meat until I'm done. I didn't know the director also made The Red Shoes. That is a really cool flick. I have both versions with the different endings. I'm going to investigate this guy further. Clever, creative film maker.

I like the film for what its worth. Stories about vulnerable men/women who just can’t get over their one great love usually annoy me but this film made it bittersweet. Yes, I'm one of those vulnerable men/women who annoys myself. lol Viewers are treated to a Team Wanee—that girl who holds on to a previous lover whom, for circumstances beyond her control, was just not meant for her (or was he?) VERSUS Team Junah-your present lover who’s clueless about your past whom you still grieve for and consequently suffers a slow and painful death inside trying to figure where he stands on Wanee’s life. The film might fail if the wrong actor were picked for it, but I will particularly point that Kim Hee-sun just effortlessly possess the qualities of a Wanee. Simple and demure. You thought you got her figured. But she carries with her a dark secret. A secret that Junah wouldn’t want to know, but sadly, has to know from outside sources, or has to find out himself. I was sad for him.

The flashbacks and camera cuts reverting to the past and then showing the present adds more subtlety to the film. You thought you knew everything, but the ending was still a question mark. There’s not much that goes on, but there IS so much going on, in the heads of the characters. The characters are not hateable, there’s no protagonist/antagonist. And there’s not much characters actually. Just Wanee and Junah and their relationship that turned sour after Wanee’s stepbrother, Young-min, made his presence felt. There’s one friend, So-young, which the movie can do without, but was included to serve as “witness” to the Wanee-Young-min relationship.

It’s a bittersweet love story in the sense that it will strike right through you and will ache your heart like you were Junah. Now I can’t say Wanee’s all the infidel that she is, and this makes the movie more interesting. Every act is justifiable. You can’t hate Wanee. You can’t hate Junah. You can’t hate Young-min. You’re just left with so many thoughts to ponder. So many questions. What happened in the ending, did they get back together? Did Young-min really show up? Is he real?

There is so much in the movie than meets the eye. While we were too engrossed on wondering when (or if) Young-min will finally show up, we tend to brush aside social issues that were silently, as if immaterial, portrayed in this such as 1) Cohabitation without benefit of marriage in a conservative society that seems it unacceptable and 2) Incest (although it can be argued that it isn’t as incestuous as they aren’t related by blood but still, there are still some countries that prohibit marriage between step siblings).

In conclusion, this is a strong drama/love story. I like it, both in terms of production values and the plot. Even the animation was cute. Strong points for some nature shots, sounds of water and the trees and birds chirping all add to the cuteness of the film.

Just one last oversight: I read through ebossert’s review and he mentioned that Young-min was a half-brother. He was a stepbrother, not a half-brother.

Thanks for weighing in, @plsletitrain; I appreciate your thoughts. I'll have a couple of follow-up comments, but will wait until after @sitenoise has a chance to throw into the mix. I will say that I, too, had a question about the ending (the implications of what we learn from the animation); however, it's not the same question you have.

plsletitrain said:

What happened in the ending, did they get back together? Did Young-min really show up? Is he real?

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Young-min never did show up. If you are thinking about the final transition from animation to the live action...that's Junah.

Okay ... I've just finished, and am looking forward to all your comments on the ending, which kind of took me by surprise. For most of the duration, it was looking in on something rather like a stillborn relationship - they're living together but it's not their house, after a year they're still putting off announcing the relationship to family and friends and yet there's a sense of drifting apart, for every moment of affection there's an equal moment of irritation. I don't know if it really is a valid comparison, but for the main part the relationship reminded me of One Fine Spring Day. But in the end, it finished on a completely different note to what I was expecting.

Well, I'll go ahead and give my thoughts on that. sitenoise will just have to catch up later LOL

I think Wanee's actions over the last half of the film show how she is putting her past to rest and accepting that she just has to let her feelings for her step-brother go. I believe this is what will finally set her free to open up her heart to Junah. Remember, even So-yang commented to Junah that "he liked her (Wanee) more than she liked him." But I think that has changed now and the two of them will develop a closer relationship moving forward. Part of that is because Junah gave her the space she needed and part of it is that she was mature enough to deal with her feelings and the emotions coming up from her past.

I didn't quite get the One Fine Spring Day vibe that you did. It's been a while since I've seen it (and I didn't care for it all that much), but as I recall the girl there was colder and just abruptly ended the relationship. I get the impression she thought the relationship was just not working and at a dead end. But Wanee doesn't think that I don't believe. I think she realizes that once she figures out her end, it will be better for the both of them. Remember how she broke down just looking at the thoughtful note from Junah? She knows she's got a good thing with him and doesn't want to screw it up--she just doesn't know how to go about it. Her irritation is not with him, it's with herself, and she's self-aware enough to realize that ("Don't you find it hard...living with me?") But she does "figure it out" i.e., come to terms with her past emotions.

As I mentioned above, I do have a totally separate question about the ending animation. And a question about the car crash. I'll post those later.

divemaster13 said:

I'll go ahead and give my thoughts on that

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I agree with virtually everything you've just said, although if I wanted to quibble, I might say that Wanee's actions in putting her past to rest was the film's third act rather than second half. It's been a long time since I saw One Fine Spring Day too, but what I recall of it was that I felt from the beginning that the relationship would not, could not work out - which is exactly with what I thought of Wanee and Junah's relationship. Even at the point of the note on the fridge, I didn't see any ray of hope for the relationship - I think Wanee broke down not because of Junah's thoughtfulness, but because she was confronted with the fact that there was an element of truth that he could be replaced by a pre-programmed TV.

Coupled with both films being quiet, meditative works that avoided spectacle or histrionics, and the vibe was there - at least for me.

divemaster13 said:

Her irritation is not with him, it's with herself, and she's self-aware enough to realize that ("Don't you find it hard...living with me?") But she does "figure it out" i.e., come to terms with her past emotions.

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That's what I got of the ending too. She was coming to terms that she can never have Young-min (notice her miserable look every time she hears the words Young-min and brother in the same sentence? She probably thinks to herself, "Damn why do we have to be brothers?" and does the imaginary banging of head on the wall). Her staying with Junah was more of a choice, rather than a feeling. It was more of a mind over matter kind of thing. And I felt kinda sad for Junah. Although it can be argued that he wasn't at all betrayed because one can never control your emotions, but you can control your choices. And Wanee chose to be with him (or does she? Who knows what happens when Young-min finally shows up?)

Since I have this habit of trying to concoct theories that aren't there, I wanted to believe that Young-min died in the car crash and it was just her hallucinations that haunt her now, confusing her feelings. But its hard to think of that when you've got those phone conversations with other people, so that means he still is alive.

As I've said the ending left me with question marks. It was like, it deserves a sequel for us to find out if she sticks with Junah when Young-min returns, or knowing how unconventional she is, will break the rules and go with Young-min. But that's the beauty of the movie, the sequel will just ruin it. Instead, we are invited to create our own sequel.

plsletitrain said:

Young-min ... was a stepbrother, not a half-brother.

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I didn't notice this time, but I've been living with the notion that they were half-siblings, not steps. After this re-watch I don't know why I thought that. I must have thought Young-min's dad was also Wanee's dad. And Young-min was the product of an affair. Or something.

Very One Fine Spring Day like to me. I mentioned the comparison in my original review years ago. The couple in One Fine Spring Day started off better and finished worse. This one had less expanse but both were like: People are imperfect and stuff comes up, and people continually evaluate if it's worth it for the good times. What I like about both films is that they present this as "just happening", not like some decision is made in a moment of epiphany. Lovers are almost always lopsided. Sometimes they see-saw. One Fine Spring Day was more meta about it: the relationship cannibalized itself. Here, the director offers an external force to drive a wedge. But I didn't buy it. The relationship wasn't rainbows and puppy dogs when we are introduced to it.

Oh heck, I see in my original review I deliberately referred to Young-min's dad as "her mother's husband". Now I don't know what I was thinking. Not really important. lol

The movie didn't tie me up in knots the way it did the first time. Still think it was well done, well directed, well acted. Hee-seon Kim, as Wanee is fabulous, despite her hairstyle malfunction and unsexy pants. Junah seemed a little too puppy dog to me this time. But Jin-mo Ju did a fine job.

Some of the framing of shots are out of this world. The overhead shot of the scene with a drunken So-Young on the bike. The shot of Wanee and Junah at the table far away and down the hall, just before the phone call. The shot of Wanee and the snail. This movie also layered time and space. The sound of a scene would change before the visual did. Nicely creative showing of a relationship rather than telling of a story.

A lot of films explore a woman battling primal urges against settling. And the guy, if he is not the primal urge, has to decide if he can live with the truth. There's a difference between eventually falling in love with who you are attracted to, and eventually becoming attracted to who you are in love with. Wanee's only expression of affection was at the end, maybe also at the very beginning when she sees Junah with the strawberries. But that first one wasn't convincing. Junah seemed more like a stalker, until that half-hearted smile. But brrrrr.

Everybody else has pointed out the important stuff here, so I'm just babbling. The thing for me is that after @divemaster13 pointed out this director made The Red Shoes, I'm interested in more of his work. Both films show a flair for creative flourishes and an interesting emotional understanding of female psychology. If Wanee's trip to Seoul was her way of saying 'my door, my heart, is back open', it was a pretty freakin mean way of saying it. But that's the way some people are. Evaluate.

I think the film should have ended right when the animated girl in her undies bends down to open the gift.

ps - why did I think the dad died in the car crash? Was it symbolic for a heart attack upon hearing Wanee's declaration?

sitenoise said:

ps - why did I think the dad died in the car crash? Was it symbolic for a heart attack upon hearing Wanee's declaration?

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The car crash scene was a very powerful scene. So much can be drawn from it. Good point on it being symbolical for a heart attack. So it could be:

1) Symbolical for a heart attack; or

2) Take it at face value- i.e. an accidental car crash—symbolical of: her secret, which was supposedly already in open having confessed to their father, remaining a secret (because finally she lets out her feelings and the person she reveals it to died). More agony on her part, it was a bad sign.

Which brings me…did she really confess to the dad? Remember when she told their father, “I like Young-min”. The dad acted as if he heard nothing. Which brings me to another theory, she didn’t say it at all. Then the car crash happened. Wanee can only conclude that nature will never allow their relationship.

sitenoise said:

ps - why did I think the dad died in the car crash? Was it symbolic for a heart attack upon hearing Wanee's declaration?

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plsletitrain said:

Which brings me to another theory, she didn’t say it at all. Then the car crash happened. Wanee can only conclude that nature will never allow their relationship.

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I took it entirely at face value - she said what she said to herself under her breath, the father was already tired, was distracted by the children on the side of the road and crashed the car. The father died in the crash, which influences Yeong-min's ambivalence to return (I think he described himself as not being ready in the phone conversation) - also, the father was only ever present in flashbacks, and when Wanee visited her mother at the orchard, I took it that the mother silently knew that Wanee was thinking about that fateful trip as they were walking along the tree-lined road.

Y'all are hitting around the same question I had about the car crash. I don't question that it really happened (other moments in the movie pretty much confirm his death, and the scene with Wanee and her mother on the road is also suggestive of the crash), but I've vacillated between "Dad crashed the car upon shock of hearing Wanee's confession" to "just a coincidental accident." At first I assumed the former, but upon a re-watch, I'm leaning toward simple accident.

A case can be made either way. Dad's seeming nonchalance after Wanee's comment could be due to speechless shock and then running off the road. This assumes (like I originally did) that he heard Wanee's comment. But I like the idea that perhaps her comment was to herself and he didn't even hear. Regardless, I believe she has internalized some amount of blame. Even if she did not intend for the father to hear her comment (and even if he didn't), can she be sure of that? Perhaps she'll never know for sure and this just adds to what she's dealing with.

plsletitrain said:

Since I have this habit of trying to concoct theories that aren't there...we are invited to create our own sequel.

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That's what's so interesting about reading other folks' comments and interpretations, especially for a well-made and complex movie. There's so much we can do with it. What happens to Wanee and Junah after the movie is over? On the face of it, nothing. They're fictional characters and the director didn't show us. But where's the fun in that?

The other aspect is that I might bring a certain interpretation based on my life experiences and perspectives, and someone else will come at it from a completely different perspective. So I might have a more optimistic view of Wanee and Junah's relationship and assume the step-brother stuff is behind her for good; someone else might play out a scenario where brother comes back and they bang like bunnies for a month, making up for lost time and unresolved longing; and yet another person might imagine a more "K-drama" type scenario where the angst and relationship complexities continue with Junah either in or out of the picture. In such speculation, there's really no "right" or "wrong" answer. As long as a theory is not directly countered by evidence within the actual filmed movie, it's pretty much all fair game.

In my second watching, Wanee's first love smoldering underneath seemed less important, like it was just another thing going on rather than the thing. Maybe because Hee-seon Kim's performance was so restrained, I was less moved by how important it was to her. Although "story-wise" it was a mover. It's why Junah left for a while.

But here's something I don't get about the animations that book-ended the film. From the ending one we understand that the boy was Junah and the girl, Wanee. When Wanee's mom kicked her out of the house, we hear it's because of her love for comics (she becomes an animator--so far so good), but this (the stealing) seems to go against Wanee's character, unless that was her teachable moment as a kid. But the anger from her mom seemed to go against how their relationship was portrayed in the film parts.

The beginning animation showed a bunch of bullying. Are we to surmise that this explains how/why Wanee and Junah got together--marginalized boy conjures inner strength to express fondness for girl who knocked his hat out of the tree for him? The reason I wonder about this is because we talk about how Young Min was the childhood first love, and Junah was the grownup thoughtful guy, but the animations--unless I'm totally missing something--suggest that Junah may have been first--and maybe more important.

Not that this is really important but the film seems so well thought out otherwise/overall, I'm just curious how to interpret the animations.

divemaster13 said:

I might bring a certain interpretation based on my life experiences and perspectives, and someone else will come at it from a completely different perspective

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"I have a purse just like that!" Yeah, I love this You get what you bring perspective about movies. Especially good ones.

sitenoise said:

But here's something I don't get about the animations that book-ended the film.... The reason I wonder about this is because we talk about how Young Min was the childhood first love, and Junah was the grownup thoughtful guy, but the animations--unless I'm totally missing something--suggest that Junah may have been first--and maybe more important.Not that this is really important but the film seems so well thought out otherwise/overall, I'm just curious how to interpret the animations.

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divemaster13 said:

As I mentioned above, I do have a totally separate question about the ending animation.

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My question is much the same as yours. I can't quite make sense of the final animation within the context of the story. Obviously, the little girl is Wanee and the little boy is Junah. They appear to be next door neighbors (or at least live on the same block). However, I could be wrong on this and Junah wandered over there from "his" neighborhood. He did scoot around a bit in the animated segment.

Also, that's Wanee's family home, where Wanee is now living. The flashbacks of the family throughout the movie and her keeping Young-min's room "as is" confirm this. The mom kicks her out and scolds her (this part does not surprise me at all. When a Korean mother goes DEFCON "Tiger Mom," all punishment is on the table. Then a hour later she's your best friend again). I'm not sure why Wanee gets the house instead of Mom, but whatever. However, I checked the animation and the "walk-up" area does not appear to be the same as that of the actual home. Not sure if this means something; it's just a limit of the animation; or if I just saw it incorrectly.

But my biggest question is that it appears that Wanee and Junah do not remember this childhood incident. Recall So-yang's question of Junah asking if Wanee was his first love. Junah basically says "no, Wanee is my second love--my first was this little girl who got kicked out of her house and was naked on her porch and I helped her." Plus, at the beginning of the movie, they are celebrating their one-year anniversary. Not "one year of living together;" but one year of being in a relationship.

It sure sounds like he doesn't realize his "little girl he helped" is Wanee. I'm not sure what to make of that. Did the director show us something, allowing us to be the "omnipresent viewer" of an incident that the characters do not remember? Perhaps in a "they were fated" approach? Or did I totally misunderstand Junah's answer to So-yang, and he was being deliberately coy? Perhaps they were friends all throughout their childhood and only moved out of the friend zone as adults? I don't think so. Wanee's flashbacks are only about Young-min.

I'm not totally happy about this interpretation (they don't remember that they met as children, as a one-off), but I can't seem to escape it.

Oh my, this opens a can of worms. I had forgotten to pair the ending animation to the 'first love' conversation. Hmm. In the film, as it was happening, I took Junah's "No" as a defense against him being a virgin to Wanee, didn't want that misunderstanding. And then didn't string it together with his additional info about helping the little girl--being first. But that conversation didn't make a lot of sense to me at the time.

Maybe the young Junah and Wanee never met after that initial incident. But. I never for a moment took the little girl house to be the one Wanee lives in during the film. Seemed like way different neighborhoods, but maybe not. Those Korean style streets are different from what I'm familiar with so I don't know. The curvy streets with walls. The walks home that W&J took from time to time seem like a similar neighborhood. But I was confused almost every time Wanee left her house, or came home, because it looked like the house was in the country. She comes out a door that has no pavement outside it, just ground, walks around a tree, and then down some steps. No steps at the door. Maybe that's a back door? She can see the TV through the window from outside. ......... Wait I just took another look, and the door I just described is a Pre-door or something (Korean). She comes "in" that door, seems to gather her mail from the ground, walks around the tree and down (steps?) and looks in her window and sees the TV on. And but, the door into the house from there is nothing like the animated front door. Another look, at the beginning whhen they come home with Strawberries and cigarettes we see that street level "Pre-door" and the camera pans up and over it for us to see the entrance to the house. So that's nothing like the animated front door. Is it a common Korean thing to have that kind of back alley entrance to a 'brownstone' like home on the other side?

Maybe Junah doesn't know who that little girl was and that's his burning primal urge, an analog to Wanee's. But then the gifting of a hat (that was a hat in the red box little Junah left for the girl, right?), to the young and old Wanee is a big coincidence, or just Junah's challenged gift giving skills. And Wanee's live action hat turns into little Junah's animated hat at the end. Hmm.

It would have been super awesome, since they went with a happy ending, to have kicked it up a notch and after little animated Junah turns into live action Junah, he should have been holding the hat he gave to Wanee

clayton-12 said:

when Wanee visited her mother at the orchard, I took it that the mother silently knew that Wanee was thinking about that fateful trip as they were walking along the tree-lined road.

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Good catch. I don't think I caught it first time.

clayton-12 said:

The father died in the crash, which influences Yeong-min's ambivalence to return (I think he described himself as not being ready in the phone conversation)

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Also, didn't put that together first time

clayton-12 said:

I took it entirely at face value - she said what she said to herself under her breath, the father was already tired, was distracted by the children on the side of the road and crashed the car.

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But this one ... I just took another look. Significant to me that W rolls up the window before she says it. Right after she says it dad looks at her in the rear view (could mean he didn't, or did hear her); Dad seems to grab a smoke (nervous reaction?) but I can't be sure, maybe he turned on the air conditioning. Young min looks terrified. He heard it for sure.

btw - W calls him 'dad'. What do we know about any of this family?
1-that W's mom is new to young min and W when the kids are 4 or 5?
2- ?

So when did W's mom and YM's dad get together and why/how would this dad be a familiar 'dad' to Wanee but YM was a secret?

sitenoise said:

So when did W's mom and YM's dad get together and why/how would this dad be a familiar 'dad' to Wanee but YM was a secret?

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The respective parents got together when the kids were very young (about the same age as in the animation) - there was a scene where Wanee, sheltering from the rain, recalls her first meeting with the father and Young-min.

divemaster13 said:

I'm not totally happy about this interpretation (they don't remember that they met as children, as a one-off), but I can't seem to escape it.

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I think I'll choose not to accept this interpretation - the idea that in real life Wanee and Junah had met as children in such circumstances, and Junah carries the memory in his heart without ever realising who Wanee is (or worse still, knowing it but never letting on) is the stuff of fanciful melodrama. For me, a literal reading just doesn't sit at all well with the rest of the film. I would much rather the animated sequences not be strict reality, but presenting a "just imagine if" scenario, to symbolise the idea that sometimes one's fate isn't the obvious fate.

I agree with this:

sitenoise said:

I think the film should have ended right when the animated girl in her undies bends down to open the gift.

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sitenoise said:

But. I never for a moment took the little girl house to be the one Wanee lives in during the film. Seemed like way different neighborhoods, but maybe not.

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I think you are right on this. It's a different house. That actually makes sense with my theory. It was a different neighborhood, so it even makes it more possible that neither would remember the incident.

sitenoise said:

Significant to me that W rolls up the window before she says it. Right after she says it dad looks at her in the rear view (could mean he didn't, or did hear her); Dad seems to grab a smoke (nervous reaction?) but I can't be sure, maybe he turned on the air conditioning. Young min looks terrified. He heard it for sure.

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I keep going back and forth on this in my mind. One one hand, I'm sure Dad heard it and poor Wanee has to live with the guilt that she "killed her stepdad" on top of being love-crushed on bro. On the other hand, it had to be just a coincidence. Possibly the car had a problem? I recall at least one, perhaps two, lingering carema shots of the underside of the car while it was driving. I looked carefully to see if the director was tipping something off, like a broken brake line or something, but no such luck. That type of shot would have been out of character for the movie anyway. Forget I said that. I'll just keep mulling it over.

clayton-12 said:

the idea that in real life Wanee and Junah had met as children in such circumstances, and Junah carries the memory in his heart without ever realising who Wanee is... is the stuff of fanciful melodrama.

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Well, I'm a sucker for melodrama! But even if this is the case (neither remembers the incident), I don't think it's too egregious a breach. I can live with it. But even so, like sitenoise pointed out, there's the thing with the hats. But perhaps that was just a way to connect the live action to the animation without implying much further. I could see the director doing that as a styistic technique without trying to suggest they've known each other all along. Hmmm. The more I type out my thoights, the more I'm satisfied with my interpretation (unlike the car thing...). It's not solid, but it works for me.

divemaster13 said:

But my biggest question is that it appears that Wanee and Junah do not remember this childhood incident. Recall So-yang's question of Junah asking if Wanee was his first love. Junah basically says "no, Wanee is my second love--my first was this little girl who got kicked out of her house and was naked on her porch and I helped her." Plus, at the beginning of the movie, they are celebrating their one-year anniversary. Not "one year of living together;" but one year of being in a relationship.

It sure sounds like he doesn't realize his "little girl he helped" is Wanee. I'm not sure what to make of that. Did the director show us something, allowing us to be the "omnipresent viewer" of an incident that the characters do not remember? Perhaps in a "they were fated" approach? Or did I totally misunderstand Junah's answer to So-yang, and he was being deliberately coy? Perhaps they were friends all throughout their childhood and only moved out of the friend zone as adults? I don't think so. Wanee's flashbacks are only about Young-min.

I'm not totally happy about this interpretation (they don't remember that they met as children, as a one-off), but I can't seem to escape it.

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I totally forgot about the first love conversation until you pointed it out. I initially took it to mean, like sitenoise, denying he's a virgin. Notice the look of restraint on his face while answering So-young. It could only mean one thing, he liked Wanee as a kid. But I think he didn't want to delve on that--probably a strategy on the part of the director of not spoonfeeding us and letting us read between the lines.

My theory of Wanee just imagining that she confessed to the dad is now debunked by the (as pointed out by sitenoise) reaction made by Young-min. Surely, he heard her. So I guess whatever interpretation we have of the car crash, we can all agree that it just added to Wanee's pain. Either she blames herself for the car crash, or as I said, she came to the conclusion that nature will never allow their relationship.

As for the hat thing, I'd take the "they were fated" theory. I took it to mean that their paths have already crossed even right before they had their own sense.

Just before the accident, there were four kids by the side of the road, right? Were they two boys and two girls? Wasn’t one of them holding a net on a pole, just like the net used to knock the yellow cap out of the tree? And didn’t the girl turn around before the accident occurred, to watch the car veer off the road, like she had a premonition of what was going to happen? Was that actually a young Wanee watching her older self’s life unfold?

Damn y’all … now this has really started to mess with my head!