Original title: 8 worui Christmas

Starring: Han Seok-Kyu, Shim Eun-Ha, Shin Ku, Oh Ji-Hye, Lee Han-Wi
Director: Hur Jin-Ho
Studio: SRE
Rating: R
Genre: Drama

About This DVD

"I don't have much time.. I'm beginning a love which may take long time.."

1. When Jung-won was young

He liked to be left alone on the playground where there was no one else around. And he thought nobody could help disappearing to somewhere else when people got old. His father, mother, and he himself would all disappear someday.

2. Love

Perhaps writers try to fill their own love story, which has been unfulfilled in their real lives by writing movie scripts. However, love in the real world is more childish and temporary than that in movies. Who said that love lasts at most two years? After that, we get sick of that love and want to break from that love; however, we just put up with it, dreaming of a new love, just like in the movies.

So it is likely that the most beautiful and touching kind of love is the one in which the partner dies even before he or she shows the partner any changes. It is because love left to the bereaved gets deeper and deeper with memories. In this sense, the last words of the hero, Han Seok-kyu, sounds so tender: "I want to thank you because you allow me to die with love for you."

An appropriate length for a movie is thought to be two hours. Some movies are funny but leave the viewer with nothing when they are over. On the contrary, some other movies make us feel like we are living other lives as we watch them. The Day a Pig Fell into a Well is one of them. So is Christmas in August. Many scenes in this movie make us feel that way?the scene in which the hero goes for another drink though he's drunk already; the scene in which he can't piss when he tries; the scene in which he makes a scene in the police office; the scene in which he cuts his toenails on the sunny floor; the scene in which he gets angry to his father instead of being nice and kind when he tries to teach his father how to work a VCR; the scene in which the heroine only puts her package deeper inside the photo-shop when she tries to get it back; and the scene in which characters go out to their illegally-parked cars, not finishing their meals, when a traffic policeman comes.

3. Death

Death may be nothing scary, sad, or heartrending to some. We cannot find any fear in the old lady who combs her hair in front of the mirror when she is going to have her picture taken for after her death. Neither can we find any fear in the hero who writes down in detail how to work the photo-development machine so that his father can take over after he passes away. Perhaps we don't have to feel scared of death because it may not be the end of life. The dead are alive in the memories of those they leave behind, who recall them from time to time with tears. So, paradoxically enough, death can be rather beautiful.

Jeong-Won in his mid thirties runs a small photo studio on the outskirts of Seoul. Though he is sentenced limited life, his daily life is just tranquil because he accepts every situation. As he is surrounded with humble neighbors such as middle school students who ask him to enlarge their favorite girls' pictures, housewives who request him to restore their pictures of young age and elderly women come to his studio alone to have photos taken for portrait, fear about death is not a problem at all. When he meets Da-Rim, a parking controller, however, he feels subtle excitement in his heart. Da-Rim leaves films of cars that violated parking regulations when she passes his studio at the same hour every day. Sometimes she has the impertinence to ask him to put a film in her camera or tells him unpleasant happenings during parking control. To Jeong-Won she is such a lovely woman. But he can't show what he thinks about her because he knows he can't make long history with her. He is getting closer to death day by day while she is just a beginner in her life in her early twenties. And he becomes fear whether he would attach on life due to her existence late in his life.

Audio Format:	Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo
Video Format:	Anamorphic Widescreen 1.85:1
Languages:	Korean
Subtitles:	English, Korean, Japanese
Country Made:	Korea
Region Code:	ALL
Year Made:	1998
Running Time:	97
Special Features:	Interactive Menus, Chapter Selection, Trailer, Cast and Crew, Other Trailers, Director's Commentary, Making Documentary, Interviews, Music Video

Availability: Unavailable.