The author of this article is a contributor @C Chan
"I have several movies I want to see."
This month, the Korean film "If Love Has Providence" was re-screened in 4K restoration in Taiwan, China, to commemorate the film's twentieth anniversary.
This 8.4-point good film, which was praised as the "ceiling of Korean love movies", must be familiar to most fans and friends, it is the love enlightenment of many people, and it is regarded as an unsurpassed love classic
In the past 20 years since its release, it can be said that it has influenced several generations of audiences since the 70s, and its enduring charm has been the most out of the circle in the mainland.
In 2015, singer Li Jian personally filled in the lyrics and covered the theme song of the film of the same name in the breakout competition of the third season of "I am a singer", and the host Sun Nan at that time also introduced that Li Jian is a deep fan of the movie and has "watched it seventeen or eight times"
"If Love Has Providence" is written and directed by Guo Jae-yong, starring Son Ye-jin, Cao Seung-woo and Cho Yin-sung, adapted from the novel "Shower", which was released in South Korea on January 30, 2003.
The movie tells the love story of two generations of mother Zhuxi and daughter Zixi:
In 2003, when Zixi, a college student, cleaned up her room, she accidentally found her mother's love letters and diaries, and through these words, Zixi relived the story of her mother's first love.
At the same time, the tortuous love between Zixi and her senior in the same school also slowly unfolds, and the love of the two generations crosses time and space, affecting the emotions of the audience.
Looking back at this movie now, in addition to the beautiful and romantic atmosphere and story, the most popular thing for the audience must be this powerful cast.
Director and screenwriter Guo Zaiyong was already popular in Asia for another self-written and directed movie "My Savage Girlfriend".
"My Savage Girlfriend" not only became popular with newcomer Jun Ji-hyun, but also proved Guo Jae-yong's talent in youth love movies, who would have thought that this director who specializes in love stories majored in physics in college.
But unlike the relaxed and cheerful style of "My Savage Girlfriend", in "If Love Has Providence", Guo Zairong infinitely amplifies the beautiful and fresh pictures and romantic poetic style he is good at, telling a sad love story that is constantly missed.
And this time, he became popular again with the actress Son Ye-jin, who was only 20 years old at the time.
Sun Yezhen, who is now loved by fans as "Sun Xian", just married Hyun Bin last year and had children, and entered a happy family life.
But twenty years ago, Son Ye-jin was only a newcomer actor who debuted for three years and had just owned two main TV series.
At that time, although he already had a certain understanding through his outstanding appearance, it was this "If Love Has Providence" that really recognized the appearance and acting skills of "Sun Xian".
First of all, director Guo Zaiyong is very good at showing the beauty of the actors through close-ups, especially Son Yezhen, who has a pair of crooked and smiling eyes, laughs brightly and movingly, and once he is sad and tears, it will definitely incite the audience to tears.
Especially when the background of the story came to 1968, Son Ye-jin, wearing a school uniform with a sense of age and two twisted braids, smiled and took advantage of the beautiful scenery in the Korean countryside, which immediately hit the hearts of countless audiences.
More importantly, Son Ye-jin challenged one person to play two roles for the first time in this movie, playing her mother Zhuxi in 1968 and her daughter Zixi in 2003.
Among them, the role of mother Zhuxi has been played from her student days to being a wife and a mother, and she has experienced the death of her lover in the middle, and her expression and state are just right, the eagerness of her first love, the sadness of separation, and the grief of her lover's death... Each stage has a different beauty, and each stage has a unique temperament.
Because of her outstanding performance, although the mother and daughter duo in the movie are played by the same actor, the audience can easily distinguish between two completely different people, and they can have deep empathy for the experience of both mother and daughter.
In later interviews, Sun Yezhen also said that the two roles of mother and daughter are very attractive, and they often fall into it while filming, and when shooting past scenes, they will think "if only this is good", and when shooting modern scenes, they will think "If only the protagonist is Zixi (daughter)".
It is also thanks to her careful interpretation that "If Love Has Providence" allowed Son Yezhen to win two Best New Actress Awards at the Grand Bell Award and the Baeksang Art Awards, and became the biggest winner of this movie at the Blue Dragon Award for Best Popular Star.
Compared with Son Yezhen, who won the award and got soft, Cao Chengyou ("Lao Qian" and "Assassination") who debuted as the male protagonist was shot a little different from the previous youth and cuteness by director Guo Zaiyong in this movie.
Especially when Junhe, played by him, first appeared in front of Zhuxi's house and attracted Zhuxi's attention with a street lamp, the camera moved down, and the giggling Junhe appeared shrouded in warm yellow lights.
At that moment, I don't know how many female audiences fell deeply into the charm of Cao Chengyou, who still had Huya at that time.
After twenty years, mention a few leading actors, they all have their own more well-known masterpieces, such as Sun Xian and Hyun Bin's "Forced Landing of Love", and Cao Shufeng's TV series "Secret Forest" and so on.
But interestingly, to this day, "If Love Has Providence" is still the highest-rated film work by Son Ye-jin, Cao Seung-woo and Cho Yincheng.
In addition to the combination of actors with high appearance and ability to play add points to the movie, looking back at the story of "If Love Has Providence", it will actually seem a little pretentious, and the soundtrack is too strong, but the whole film is still flawed.
Among the many advantages, Xiaowan believes that the most important is that director and screenwriter Guo Jaeyong chose the turbulent sixties and seventies as the setting for the story of the protagonists Joo Hee and Junha.
Even in ordinary love stories, when the fate of the characters is linked to the ups and downs of a specific era, the clichéd love story will be injected with a thick atmosphere of the times.
When the national situation and international wars (involving the Vietnam War in the film) become obstacles to human emotions, when the emotions with people are amplified into a strong era background, the audience's emotion is naturally easier to be touched and easier to substitute into it.
This is undoubtedly Guo Zairong's most clever point, and it is for this reason that "If Love Has Providence" is still the best reputation among the works directed by this director.
In addition, the director also placed many of the same objects in the love story of two generations to create the mood: letters, necklaces, fireflies, rainy days and umbrellas...
These small objects not only connect the two generations over a period of thirty years, but also hold the attention of the audience and completely control the audience's emotions.
In particular, a love poem that runs through two generations in the film: "When the sun shines on the sea, I begin to miss you; When the moonlight shines on the lake, I start to miss you."
The poem is from the German writer Goethe's poem "The Near Side of the Lover", whose life spanned two centuries and echoed the background of two generations of film.
And the sentence at the end of the original work is a footnote that director Guo Zairong carefully planted for the direction of this love story——
"Even if I am not together, I am still by your side, and you are still by my side."
On the occasion of the 20th anniversary of its release, such a heart-to-heart and time-tested romance film may wish to relive it once.