Beolsae

I have always liked arthouse or melodramatic movies. The cinematography of this film is beautiful. A lot of people did find it boring due to the film's duration being too long and i might agree with it at some point. But that doesn't change the fact that i actually enjoyed watching the movie. The plot was amazing and all the actors were wonderful at their job. One reason why this movie is so special to me is because at some point throughout the movie, i could connect with the main character, Eun-hee.

I would definitely recommend watching this film. All you require is a little bit of patience.

Accurately represented conflicts between a Korean school girl and ordinary family in Gangnam district in 1994.

Korean family living in the same format of house as others. The purpose of children's life is captivated in school and cram school to be enrolled in the top university. Not much conversation between parents and children apart from school record. Therefore life in children is no fun at all.

Narrated well about how the schoolgirl tried to find the purpose of life and small fun things from the boring but unfair life.

The House of Hummingbird (Beolase) was creating unique mood that I couldn't see at other movies. The movie begins with the setting of the main character and explains the relationships between them. The most impressive thing was the events were based on real events and life of director. I believe this is why Beolsae could transfer message to audience and impact audience. I want to point out that Bolase's cinematography is amazing. Every transition, angle, lighting represents the events, emotion, and more. But Beolsae had some of awkwardness in some of shots. Some of shots were dragging a little and I thought some of shots should be edit more shorter. But overall, it was good movie with message.

Set in 1994, the film focuses on a 14 year old girl struggling with family and school, while trying to find her identity, which is something we all go through at that age, I guess. There were a few subject matters that were very well tackled in the film, considering the ages of the young actors, and more importantly the time period the film is supposed to be based on. Kids are usually very good in dramas, so there were no surprises in terms of their performances. There's a major event in the film that occurred in the mid 90s, which most foreigners probably aren't aware of, and which answers the question as to why the film was set in that period.

The only qualm I had with this film was its pace. Some scenes, in an effort to come across as poetic, just dragged on a tad bit.

Bora Kim's first feature film "House of Hummingbird" is a solid masterpiece. The story might be feel little slow but when you are telling a story from a eighth grade girl point of view about a middle class family what she think a messed up family then you have to be slow and steady.

As a younger member of the family, Eun-Hee feel kinda left out from her family and confused about relationships between her family members. Slowly she started to picking the pieces of life as she sees other people life surround her and find out what's a family mean.

Background score and cinematography were marvelous, help to keep your attention to story.