Bungee Jumping of their Own (2001)

This movie is seriously underrated. Nobody seems to know about it even though Lee Byung Hun is the male lead. I hope that with this review a few more people will decide to give this movie a try.

Let me start with the plot. You could say that this movie is devided into two equally long parts. The first one focuses on the development of the relationship of the two main characters, and the second one shows the situation of the male lead 17 years later.

You could say that the real story only starts with the second half of the movie and for people who are not into light romance movies, the first half of the movie might seem really draggy and uninteresting as it only shows selected scenes of the couple and their relationship, but believe me, every one of those scenes is necessarry to understand what happens in the second part of the movie and why exactly the main character falls in love with one of his male students.

And let me tell you, this is not a gay movie! It is true that "gay" becomes a subject at the end of the movie, but that is not what this movie is about.

This movie is simply about love. About endless love.

I don't know how it is for most people who saw this movie. I've read other people's opnions about the ending, but I don't agree with most of them. Some just didn't get the message this movie was trying to deliver.

It was not about society and gay people and the "curse" of loving the same gender. Absolutely not. This movie was just about how much love effects you and that it is possible to find your soulmate. This movie is about an undying love that no matter what will never fade.

The characters and the actors were just awesome. I can't really put into words how much I loved the male main character and the way he changed after 17 years, but his love for her never died. It was also increcible how the second male lead (who becomes his love interest in the seconds part of the movie) resembled the female lead, but was at the same time so different.

This movie is just the best and people who like complicated but sweet romance stories should definitely give it a chance. And yes, I really think that this movie is sweet, despite the drama and tragedy that seem to happen to the male main character the whole time.

I've watched this movie a lot of times already, but I could still watch it over and over again and love it just as much as I did the first time I watched it.

Just one thing: Don't drop the movie before the "17 years later" part begins. You will love this movie, believe me!

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I must admit to finding this movie quite confusing, just as I thought I'd worked it out it seemed to take another turn. The link from beginning to development certainly requires patience before some understanding of what's going on begins to emerge. However I would tend to agree with the previous reviewer it's probably underrated and it has some quite complex layers of meaning that by the end have you puzzling but staying with you as you try to unravel them - perhaps that's the definition of a good movie. It's obviously not just a "gay" movie. It struck me as more representing in a story a psychological breakdown and struggle to make sense out of what had happened to him - someone trying to recover psychologically from a deep inner sense of loss of the "love of his life" - maybe an ideal image and since she disappeared that ideal image would never be tested by reality, so having an even more powerful hold in a way. So he seizes on coincidences of words etc and projects this image on to someone else who happens to be a schoolboy. Others may see it as having some spiritual explanation, like reincarnation - and certainly that's the more obvious explanation in a way, given the closing comments of the film. If you apply the title "bungee jumping" to what happens at the end and two people finding a real feeling of love for each other, regardless of the issue of sexuality, then it would seem to be a happy "gay" ending (what a rarity in Korean movies that is). If that's the case, I take it the bungee jumping is intended to be just that (and we do see the pulley). But then you wonder did the rope snap or did they jump off as there's these closing comments about meeting in another life and definitely giving the impression that you will keep coming back until you're in a "normal" hetero- relationship - which mixes up the whole meaning of the story again - or is that just meant to be taken as a laugh? really a statement that sexuality is of secondary importance? Well sometimes I do "overdetermine" the meaning of stories, admittedly, but this is not a straightforward story by any means. There's a fair bit of angst and sadness about two-thirds through. Putting aside the meaning, the "visual delights" would not entice me to watch again (that's apart from the fact the quality of film is pretty low on the only available subbed version I could find). It's dated, the "schoolboys" had certainly been held back about five years judging by their real ages or they must have extraordinarily well-developed physiques in Korea. But these are not really important given the impact of the story. Can't really give it a ten as there are too many loose ends capable of various interpretations which may be just because the director has failed to communicate well enough for analytical types like me to pick out the signals to what he intends. Well worth a re-watch in the future despite the discouraging film quality.

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Love is love ?

South Korea began transitioning to a democratic regime only in the 1980s, and my hypothesis is that the process itself took many years and likely still continues. In the 2000s, they really started to flourish and seemingly express a kind of Western defiance, which, in my opinion, infiltrated at least the film industry in a recognizable way. This movie, in my view, displays those markers, as if you're traveling back in time to the Hollywood of the 1980s in the United States.

The desire to convey a defiant idea that "love is love," unrelated to age or sexual identity, was successfully emotional and managed to deliver the message in its unsophisticated way. It was also very direct, typical of those years when there was a certain innocence and naivety, and everything was spoon-fed.
That is, the character whose soul was transmigrated spoke the same sentences and heard the same music at a level of 100 percent, not just hints here and there. Moreover, there was a lot of caution not to show any intimacy between the two characters(Second round), due to the period it was filmed.

In my opinion, it still holds up even though 23 years have passed, but on the other hand, it's very easy to judge this movie now because we are in a different era where things could have been a bit more blunt.
That is, if they had shown us a romantic scene between the two characters in the second reincarnation, it could have been bold for an even earlier time while still maintaining the same flame to this day.

Many of the things said by the male protagonist's classmates could not pass today's censorship filter, what is known as political correctness. After all, it's permissible to say these things only in class, but heaven forbid depicting them in a fantasy movie scene. Blunt remarks that men would make about women, which are still made today albeit censored, manage to induce a sort of internal cringe because this censorship has become part of our consciousness.
The same goes for other aspects in the movie, such as age differences. In the 2000s, this wasn't relevant and wasn't censored in South Korea. From the modern viewer's perspective, people who watch this and criticize the movie may not be aware that the era was different, and such things were accepted as part of the culture.

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The mystical film, which will be twenty years old, caught my attention and words like love, first love, love at first sight are not just words. Moreover, the soul is genderless and there is always only one sexual orientation. That's the motto of this story.
In my opinion, the teacher-student relationship did not get more space for rendering, which is a shame. The character Tae Hee seems to be cursed with her role and the actress Lee Eun Joo lost her life for 4 years for filming at the age of 25.

The director did not make anything clear, as my pre-evaluator believes. The producers decided on this story and it was written by someone completely different and they hired a director to direct it, he can't break the story completely differently because he might get fired.
To tell you the truth, I liked the 2019 Thai remake of this story a little better, the movie Dew, which we also have here, in which the story is turned upside down and with a "different", more pleasant ending. And South Korea doesn't have to contend for the title of gay cultured country (see review below me). The Czech Republic is several levels ahead of the Czech Republic in terms of the production and quality of films and series with a gay theme. Overall, I rate this movie above average.
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Fascinating Idea, Too Problematic Plot & Execution

It should've been a great queer movie. The idea was genius — your loved one is dead and years later you found someone who acts exactly like your past lover but as someone who has the same gender as you are? What a touching yet heartbreaking idea.

But it would be too problematic if you add cheating and horrible age gap (a grown man teacher and an underage student). Plus, the obsession the teacher had with his student is just make it worse.

The weirdest part of this movie in my opinion was when the student suddenly realized that he is his teacher's past lover. Does reincarnation work that way? Become fully what they used to be? Can't they have their own feelings? It feels more like he's being possessed with the teacher's past lover.

The best thing about this movie is its duration. I didn't really waste my time to watch this. I was so curious about how the remake would be, but sadly it's cancelled.

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