General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20266 min read

The Classic (클래식)

The Classic (클래식) is a 2003 South Korean romantic drama film written and directed by Kwak Jae-yong, in which a university student discovers her mother's old letters and diary and, through them, a first love story from the late 1960s that mirrors her own.¹ It stars Son Ye-jin in a dual role as both the daughter, Ji-hye, and her mother, Joo-hee, alongside Cho Seung-woo and Jo In-sung.² The film opened in South Korea on January 30, 2003, runs 132 minutes, and was rated 12 in Korea.¹

Key fact	Detail
Korean title / director	클래식 (Keullaesik); written and directed by Kwak Jae-yong³
Release	January 30, 2003, South Korea; 132 minutes; rating 12¹
Cast	Son Ye-jin (Ji-hye / Joo-hee), Cho Seung-woo (Joon-ha), Jo In-sung (Sang-min), Lee Ki-woo (Tae-soo)²^•⁴
Production	EGGFILM Co., Ltd.; distributed by Cinema Service¹
Music	Cho Young-wuk (music director); the soundtrack includes "Neoege nan, naege neon" by the band Jeonjagae Tan Punggyeong²^•⁵
Son Ye-jin's awards for the film	Baeksang Arts Awards Best New Actress; Grand Bell (Daejong) Awards Best New Actress; Blue Dragon Film Awards Popular Star Award, all 2003²^•⁶
Audience ratings	IMDb 7.7/10 from about 11,000 users; Rotten Tomatoes Popcornmeter 72% from 250+ ratings⁷^•⁸

Spoilers

Story

The film runs two love stories in parallel, one in the present and one in the past, both carried by written words.⁹ In the present, college friends Ji-hae and Soo-kyung both like Sang-min, a senior in their university theater class. Soo-kyung asks Ji-hae to write love letters (in some retellings, e-mails) to Sang-min on her behalf, and Ji-hae pours her own feelings into the messages under her friend's name; Soo-kyung and Sang-min get together, but Sang-min and Ji-hae keep running into each other.¹^•⁴

The past story begins when Ji-hae, cleaning the house, finds a box of her mother Joo-hee's old letters and a diary.⁹^•¹⁰ Reading them, she learns of her mother's first love affair in the countryside in 1968, involving a shy young man, Joon-ha (Cho Seung-woo), and his best friend, a story that closely matches her own situation at university.³^•⁹ Rotten Tomatoes summarizes the past thread as a long-ago love triangle involving her mother, her future father, and his best friend.⁸ The two eras are linked by the device of letters: handwritten letters in the 1960s, e-mails in the present.⁹

Production

Kwak Jae-yong made The Classic two years after My Sassy Girl (2001), turning from that film's comedy toward a more traditional, purely lyrical romance.¹¹^•¹² Production was by EGGFILM Co., Ltd., with Cinema Service handling distribution and international sales.¹

Filming took about 120 days. The shoot began on September 9, 2002, in Daejeon and wrapped on December 29, 2002, in Mokpo, traveling through locations including Andong, Yeoju, and Jinhae, chosen for streetscapes that preserved the atmosphere of the 1960s and 1970s. The past and present stories were shot with different tones and moods.¹³

The music is by Cho Young-wuk, with songwriting and arrangement credited to Yoo Yeong-seok and Choi Seung-hyun.² The soundtrack, which repeatedly uses pieces such as Pachelbel's Canon, is described by one reviewer as half of the movie's experience, though also somewhat repetitive.¹⁴ The use of Jeonjagae Tan Punggyeong's song "Neoege nan, naege neon" ("To You I Am, To Me You Are") on the soundtrack is one of the film's best-remembered elements in Korea.⁵

Cast and performances

Son Ye-jin plays both mother and daughter, a dual role that contemporary Korean coverage noted she handled with general competence and that later reviewers single out for its calm, understated quality.¹⁵^•⁹ The Classic was only her second major acting role after her debut in Im Kwon-taek's Chihwaseon (2002), and her performance won her Best New Actress at both the 39th Baeksang Arts Awards and the Daejong (Grand Bell) Awards, plus the Popular Star Award at the 24th Blue Dragon Film Awards.⁶ Cho Seung-woo, who plays Joon-ha, had also made his screen debut in an Im Kwon-taek film, Chunhyang (2000).⁹ The film's music won Best Music for Jo Yeong-wook at both the Korean Film Awards and the Chunsa International Film Festival in 2003, and Kwak Jae-yong took the Audience Award at the Yubari International Fantastic Film Festival.²

Release and reception

The film opened in South Korea on January 30, 2003, and was released theatrically in Singapore on February 3, 2003 (rated PG), in Hong Kong on July 8, 2003, and in Japan on January 24, 2004 (rated R15+).¹⁶ It later screened at festivals including the Cairo International Film Festival (2003), the Philadelphia Film Festival (2004, New Korean Cinema section), the Moscow IFF Face of Love program (2004), and the Korean Film Festival in Hungary (2010).¹

Box office figures differ by source. The Korean Film Council's English database records 24,493 total admissions on 70 screens with a total gross of $136,814 for the film as tracked there.¹ A 2026 retrospective review states the film drew roughly 1.5 million admissions in Korea.⁹

Critical and audience standing has held up over two decades. IMDb users give it 7.7/10 from about 11,000 ratings, with an unweighted mean of 8.0.⁷ Rotten Tomatoes shows no critic reviews on its Tomatometer but a 72% Popcornmeter audience score from 250+ ratings.⁸ Retrospective reviews praise the rain scene, Son Ye-jin's dual performance, and the score, while noting dated elements such as heavily poetic lines, a reliance on lucky coincidences, and a slow pace by current standards.⁹ A Korean retrospective on 2000s melodrama credits the film, together with Jo In-sung and Son Ye-jin's rain-shielding scene and its soundtrack, as the work that established Son Ye-jin as a leading romance star.⁵ Film commentary on 2003 Korean cinema lists The Classic among the year's well-made commercial films, released alongside Memories of Murder, Oldboy, and A Tale of Two Sisters.¹⁷

Availability

As of recent listings, The Classic is not available for streaming in the United States; after checking more than 1,600 services, JustWatch found it available in Japan and South Korea, including on Amazon Prime Video and Netflix (Standard with Ads) in South Korea.⁴

References

Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Drama and biographical films (individual works) › Drama films 2000s › Romantic drama films 2000s

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026

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