Korea Journal of Buddhist Studies 불교학연구 ISSN:1598-0642(Print)

It was over sixty years ago that a Buddhist movie was first made in Korea. We must therefore now begin reviewing how well Buddhist movies realize the themes of Buddhism from a Buddhist Studies perspective, rather than simply praising the rare creation of Buddhist movies. This paper is a critical review on realizing the themes of Buddhism in two representative Buddhist movies, the Come, Come, Come Upward (directed by Im Gwon-taek, 1989) and the Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter, and Spring (directed by Kim Gideok, 2003). These movies, which have won prizes at domestic and foreign film festivals, are often considered representative Korean Buddhist movies. However, they have some problems from a Buddhist Studies viewpoint. Come, Come, Come Upward tries to emphasize altruistic actions and bodhisattvas’ practice of Mahayana Buddhism through two typical contrasting characters, but story structure and the wrong actions of characters drive its failure in realizing Mahayana Buddhist virtue. In particular, unlike that of the original story the film was based on, the death of every male who the protagonist heroine meets and tries to help almost resembles that of some sort of distorted Christian movie rather than Buddhist. Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter, and Spring , which is a similar story to Jo-sin(調信)’s in the Samguk-yusa (三國遺事, Heritage of the Three Kingdoms ), describes only people suffering in the realm of samsara and do not reveal the world of Nirvana or enlightenment that is the aim of Buddhism. For future Buddhist movies, it is important that we provide movie makers with an explicit explanation of the themes of Buddhism in order to make them understand the structure of buddhist thinking. Only this will enable them and us to realize buddhist themes in film through conventional materials and expressions free from those of Buddhism.