How did Lee Young-ae become such a star without making many movies?

One Fine Spring Day

There is this very short, tiny scene in “One Fine Spring Day” where the male protagonist finds a picture of the female protagonist in which she is wearing a wedding dress (or rather, where she looks like she is preparing herself for her wedding), but afterwards, this scene completely disappears. I read somewhere on the internet that there is some revelation about the girl’s dark secret, but if the dark secret is that she has been married before, then it is completely inconsequential. He never brings it up, she never acts like this has any impact on her life and obviously a husband never shows up. I don’t know what the point of that scene was, but it certainly is no Chekhov’s gun. To me, this scene perfectly describes what is off with that movie – an essentially inconsequential story and nothing is ever explained. These people meet, and nobody ever knows why they like each other, why they separated and what the whole point was anyways. For all we know, he may have retained feelings for her, but as we saw throughout the film, it is a rather futile endeavor.

I’m not saying that the film is not realistic, or not beautiful. In fact, anything with Lee Young-ae must be by definition beautiful. Nevertheless, the true gem of the film is the male protagonist’s relationship with his grandmother who also has painful memories of a past love. That relationship was sweeter than anything the protagonists have and whose actions are sometimes irritable at best. I have to admit that I was painfully reminded of “My Sassy Girl” which also follows the formula “Pretty Girl(TM) ruins the life of Nice Guy(TM)” where the audience has to love the girl as much as the guy does simply because she is attractive. Even with Lee Young-ae this leaves a bitter aftertaste for me.

There is no doubt that “One Fine Spring Day” has many beautiful scenes conveying a very romantic, emotionally pure love, but the imbalance between the characters and the lack of communication between them is almost infuriating. I am very conflicted when it comes to how I feel about this film.