Kim In Su on April Snow.

April Snow :

On live concert hall, lighting director, In-su (BAE Yong-joon) leaves the hall in a hurry putting the concert in charge of his junior worker. Then in a hallway at a hospital operation room in Samcheok, Kangwon-do, he meets Seo-young (SON Ye-jin). The reason he went there is a car accident of his wife, Su-jin (LIM Sang-hyo). Also, Seo-young’s husband, Kyung-ho (RYU Seung-su), was in the car with her.

While Su-jin and Kyung-ho are in unconsciousness by serious injury, In-su and Seo-young realize that Su-jin and Kyung-ho are in ‘special relationship’ on settling the accident. For In-su and Seo-young, it is harder to accept than the fatal accident. Love becomes confusion, anger, and betrayal. While they pray for their spouses’ peaceful recovery even though they blame for it, the two people fell each other’s existence slowly.

In a motel in front of the hospital, the two people start long term stay and meet each other again and again. Eventually, they fall in love spending their time together. Even they were confused by their spouses’ betrayal, now they experience the same pain their spouses did as they fall into the same situation.
At this time, Su-jin comes back to consciousness. In-su cannot look away from his wife shedding tears. While looking at In-su, Seo-young realizes that it is time to go back to their own places. Then, they prepare for going out, which might be the last time, only for the two.

The director HUR Jin-ho. He even wants to put air flow an actor will feel into a movie.
Excluding artificial feeling to the maximum in an actual place, he established his unique style to describe people who most likely would be there, and even April Snow is not exceptional.
The production team of Aril Snow. They travel hospitals and cities all over the country to find ‘a strange city which really exists’. At the end of the trip, they met Samcheok, and it was like an enormous set built just for the movie, April SNow . An old hospital with complex structure having strange atmosphere apart from reality even though it is the most real space the characters encounter their despairing reality. A small motel next to the hospital just like in the movie. Then, there are Jookseoroo, one of 8 great Eastern sceneries, and an old cafeteria without column when you walk past the motel. Also, everything the director HUR Jin-ho wanted in April Snow, including even solitude radiating from calm streets, was already prepared in Samcheok.

Under aggressive cooperation from Samcheok city, April Snow is under production, and the location for the movie will be made as ‘Special Complex for Tourists.’

The climax of April Snow is the outdoor concert scene. While preparing, the production team accidentally met large size outdoor concert planned by M&F, a movie score specialty production, and had a chance for a new plan. It was shooting a film in a place having an actual concert. It is the very first try of Korean movie, and also, it is meaningful for both the concert and the movie. Audience of the concert has chance to participate in April Snow, the biggest projected movie in Asia, as extras, and the movie gets advantage of putting real concert site vividly.
In the movie, the concert scene is about ‘In-su’, as a lighting director, reminiscing time he felt special love of his lifetime with snowfall. Screams from large size audience, live performance by best Korean singers, and spring snow falling from the sky are there like a lie. All of those will combine together to make a most beautiful scene Korean movie will remember for a long time.


Expectation on April Snow is not just limited to the director and the cast. Another people on attention are the camera director LEE Mo-gae, who became the center of attention in A Tale of Two Sisters with his sensitive vision, the lighting director OH Seung-chul, a magician of light who paints screen with his fresh sense, the art director PARK Sang-hoon, who bore captivating mise-en-scene in Untold Scandal, and the musical director CHO Sung-woo, the height of Korean movie scores.

A camera that approaches close to the characters and lighting that delivers character’s emotion with modern-style natural light. Samcheok’s space that will symbolize character’s mood with worn feeling and music that doubles character’s emotion and relationship with sometimes lyrical and sometimes intensive music. With all of those combinations, the director HUR Jin-ho and two actors, BAE Yong-joon and SON Ye-jin, will add their full energy in April Snow to make the best melodrama movie in 2005.

He is...
He is a husband of a woman my husband loved.
I met him in the hospital my husband and his wife were carried in together.
He showed his sad face looking at his wife who loved my husband, not him.
His feeling that he kicked my door in the motel at that drunken night,
His feeling that he checked text messages my husband and his wife exchanged,
I know them too well.
A man who accompanied me to the funeral,
A man who gave medicine to me who caught cold,
A man who taught me how to scream and to throw a snowball,
A man who made me smile for a while,
A man who cried like a child in my arms for the first time,
His name is KIM In-su.

As a top star in Asia with Winter Sonata, BAE Yong-joon tried a new change starring in Untold Scandal after 10 years from his debut to challenge the silver screen. Also, he makes continuous efforts like a first time actor making another image of himself by shooting the photo book, The Image Vol. 1. Then, emptying himself to challenge another height, he prepares for another change. ‘Cause he will be a man in dangerous love representing chaotic inner life in detail.

She is…
She is a wife of a man my wife loved.
In the dawn I rushed to Samcheok after hearing the accident, she was crying in the hallway of the hospital.
In the critical patient room her husband and my wife lied side by side,
At the police station I went for my wife’s belongings,
In the hallway of the motel in front of the hospital I started long-term stay,
At the pharmacy in a sleepless night,
She was there by the same reason of mine.
A woman who placed the same vase she would place in her husband’s sickroom to my wife’s,
A woman who raised her overcoat to block the wind for cigarette light,
A woman who told me that she was sick of that winter and wanted to see a season flowers and snow are falling from the sky.
A woman who cried silently in my chest,
Her name is HAN Seo-young.

Since her debut, her continuous works throughout silver screens made SON Ye-jin as a female actor with performance and marketability. Even though it was short experience, she is already a jewel of Chungmooro. Now, SON Ye-jin tries a daring make-over with a new image while throwing her pure image. ‘Cause she will make a character with extremely contradictory emotions, such as a love that came to her at despairing situation, anger, sorrow, desire, and so on in it.

The first love, Christmas in August, showed tingling and hesitating before starting love in detail of daily life delicately.
Especially, the director HUR Jin-ho’s unique expression of feeling delivering the main character facing death warmly and peacefully made lingering effect for audience more effective than exploding dramatic emotion, and it made audience’s hearts calm for a long time.
In the second love, One Fine Spring Day, the director conveys feelings left out after love on the screen directly.
Through time and space we can feel the main characters’ emotion, we follow their mood densely.
A thing that looked like it would never change happens to be changed, and delicate feelings are born from it like regret, anxiousness, or a different shape of love.
The director delivered those feelings successfully in the film.
The director HUR Jin-ho has unique point of view and extraordinary vision on love.
Through April Snow, he describes love came to a man and a woman in special situation of accident and extramarital affairs, conflicts of extreme feelings by the dangerous love, and understanding after it with reconciliation.
In his third love story, April Snow, a point of view with one step more matured love will be delivered with more extreme feelings than those of previous works.

CREDIT
Presented by ShowEast
Produced by BlueStorm
Directed by Hur Jin-ho
Executive Producer : Kim Dong-joo
Producer : Bae Yong-kook
Field Producer : Kang Bong-rae
Screenplay : Hur Jin-ho
Director of Photography : Lee Mo-gae
Lighting : Oh Seung-chul
Production Design : Park Sang-hoon
Sound : Lee Byung-ha
Editing : Lee Eun-soo
Music : Cho Sung-woo
Hair / Make-up : Sohn Sam-joo
Wardrobe : Kim Moon-yung

The Road (Korean Version)
mms://aod.mylisten.com/aod/3/63/068363_0882361.wma

The Road (Chinese Version)
http://www.byjrealm.com/aprilsnow/aprilsnow.mp3


외출(April Snow, 2005)

- 감독 : 허진호
- 출연 : 배용준(콘서트 조명 감독 인수), 손예진(주부 서영)
- 교통사고를 계기로 만난 두 남녀가 각자 배우자들이 불륜 관계라는 사실을 알면서 사랑의 배신이라는 참담한 현실에 직면하면서 점차 서로에게 빠져든다는 내용의 멜로영화.

영화가 개봉하기 전부터 잔뜩 기대를 품고 기다렸던 작품이었는데 영화를 먼저 본 사람들의 반응은 영 신통치 않아 나름대로 걱정을 하며 관람했다. 결과는? 역시 어느 것이나 다를 바 없겠지만 주관적인 경향이 좌우하기 때문일까. 걱정했던 만큼 형편없는 영화가 아니었으며 오히려 추천해 주고픈 영화라고 할 수 있겠다. 다만, 보는 이의 취향과 나이를 고려해야 뒤탈이 없을 것 같다. 어디까지나 개인적인 생각이지만 이십대보다는 삼십대 이후의 연령층이 내용을 객관적으로 받아들이기에 무리가 없으리라 본다. 사랑은 열정만으로 이루어지는 것이 아니라 연륜도 필요하다고 절실히 느끼는 요즘의 생각이다.


이쯤에서 누군가 '인수와 서영의 사이는 불륜이 아닌가?'라는 질문을 던진다면 서슴없이 '그렇다.'라고 대답할 것이다. 그럼 그는 '불륜이라고 생각한다면 어찌 사랑이라는 표현을 쓰는가?'라고 재차 묻고 싶겠지. 여기서 잠시 불륜의 사전적 의미를 짚어보자면 '불륜(不倫)[명사][하다형 형용사] (남녀 관계가) 윤리에서 벗어남.'이란다. 단지 윤리에 어긋난다는 뜻일 뿐 사랑이 아니라는 말이 아닌 걸로 풀이할 수 있다. 해석하기 나름일 테니 거창하게 사전적 의미를 들먹이지 않더라도 주관적인 생각을 묻는다면 역시 사랑이라고 본다. 특히나 영화에서 말하고자 했던 내용은 포괄적인 의미에서의 '사랑'이 아닌가 싶다.


눈이 내리는 도로 위를 달리는 차 창밖의 풍경만을 보여주며 관객에게 해석을 유도하는 모습이 너무나 비겁해 보이기도 했다. 이런 비겁함은 영화 속 곳곳에서 지루함을 유발시키기도 한다. 영화 속 주인공들은 배우자의 배신에 대한 감정을 쉽게 드러내지 않는다. 그만큼 충격이 컸음을 말하려는 의도였을까? 인수와 서영은 서로에게 느끼는 복잡하고도 미묘한 감정의 표현에도 솔직하지 못하고 소극적이다. 이들의 무기력하고 소심한 불륜은 현실적이지 않은 듯하면서도 어떤 면에선 너무나 현실적이기에 지켜보는 이에게 동정심마저 유발한다.

현실적인 사랑이란 그것이 불륜이건 아니건 간에 너무 슬프다.