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The Way Home (2002 film)

The Way Home
The Way Home film.jpg
Hangul
Revised Romanization Jib Euro
McCune–Reischauer Chip Ŭro
Directed by Lee Jeong-hyang
Produced by Hwang Woo-hyun
Hwang Jae-woo
Written by Lee Jeong-hyang
Starring Kim Eul-boon
Yoo Seung-ho
Music by Kim Dae-heung
Kim Yang-hee
Cinematography Yoon Heung-sik
Edited by Kim Jae-bum
Kim Sang-bum
Production
company
Tube Pictures
Distributed by CJ Entertainment
Tube Entertainment
Release date
  • April 5, 2002 (2002-04-05)
Running time
87 minutes
Country South Korea
Language Korean
Box office US$24,952,738

The Way Home (Hangul집으로; RRJibeuro) is a 2002 film written and directed by Lee Jeong-hyang. It tells the story of a grandmother and her city-born grandson who comes to live with her in a rural village. The film won South Korea's equivalent of the Oscars for best picture and screenplay. The Way Home was the second-highest grossing homegrown film in South Korea in 2002. It was released on DVD, with English subtitles, in 2003 by Paramount.

The story begins on a fine summer's morning, when Sang-woo (Yoo Seung-ho) and his mother board a bus to the country. It is soon clear that the unsophisticated rural passengers annoy the seven-year-old urban boy. His mother is taking him to live with his 75-year-old mute, but not deaf, grandmother (Kim Eul-boon) while she looks for a new job after a business venture failed in Seoul. Eventually they reach their destination, a dusty bus stop in the Korean countryside near an unsophisticated village.

By now Sang-woo, who has arrived with junk food and toys, has no intention of respecting his mute grandmother especially as her house is primitive with no running water. His mother apologizes for leaving the boy, telling her own mother it will not be for too long before leaving on the next bus. Alone Sang-woo ignores his grandmother, not even wanting to look at her and even calling her a byungshin, or "retard". Next morning, his grandmother starts another day. She goes down the hill to get clean water and washes her clothes at the river. She also tends the melons that she will sell at the market.

One of the Grandmother's neighbors is a hard-working country boy who attempts to become friends with Sang-woo, who declines until the end when he apologizes for making fun of him. The other is a young girl who Sang-Woo falls in love with, but she is more interested in the country boy.

The grandmother, who also cares for her old friends very much, lives a simple and humble life. Eventually, from constant play, Sang-woo's Game Boy runs-out of batteries so he asks his grandmother for money for new ones. But she is poor and has none. Selfishly he teases her, and in an intolerant manner throws away her shoes, breaks her (empty) chamber pot, and draws graffiti on her house walls.


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