Thursday, February 13, 2025
Past Lives
It’s year 2000 in Seoul, South Korea when 12-year-old childhood friends, Na Young & Hae Sung begin to develop feelings for each other. However, shortly, Na Young’s family immigrates to Toronto, Canada, & the two lose contact with each other. Their lives take separate paths. She changes her name to Nora Moon & works toward becoming a playwright. He remains in Korea & studies to be an engineer. They reconnect 12 years later through social media, converse through video calls, & reminisce. They seem obsessed with their chats together until Nora suddenly calls it quits because she needs to focus on her career. Another 12 years pass & now Nora is married to Arthur & has moved to New York City. Then one day, Hae Sung visits NYC to meet with Nora & Arthur, where they grapple with their feelings for each other, destiny, & the choices they have made. This is a bittersweet semi-autobiographical romantic drama written/directed by Celine Song. It’s themed by the Korean philosophy of “Inyeon”, how the relationship between two souls in the present is influenced by the interactions in thousands of past lives. You will feel for these two souls & hope somewhere & sometime in the past or future they had been or will be brought closer together. This film is spoken in both English & Korean with English subtitles.
Alien gives it 3 “psycho cry baby dreaming in Korean” stars out of 4.
