115 minutes, 35mm, in Korean with English subtitles
Directed by: KIM Dae-sung
Starring: YOO Ji-tae, KIM Ji-Su, UM Ji-Won

Showtimes: MON June 25, 5:00pm at the IFC Center [Buy Tickets];
SUN July 1, 1:00pm at the IFC Center [Buy Tickets].
Note: "Buy Tickets" links will take you to the IFC Center website (for shows at IFC Center) and to Japan Society website (for shows at Japan Society). Tickets for each venue must be purchased separately.

"It’s all disappearing," a character says at the beginning of TRACES OF LOVE, looking out over the Korean landscape, and over the course of this movie, it all does: love, life and happiness all go up like smoke. Starting in 1995, TRACES is about a public prosecutor, Hyun-woo (YOO Ji-tae, the bad guy from Oldboy) and his fiancé, Min-joo (KIM Ji-Su). Their future looks bright until a real life disaster intrudes, and Min-joo loses her life in an accident that might remind New Yorkers a little too much of September 11th. Fast-forward ten years and all that early promise is gone. Min-joo is a locked-down, clench-jawed jackass prosecutor whose career is going off the rails as his office gets involved in a political scandal and he’s ordered to take a vacation. He decides to follow his and Min-joo’s honeymoon route and as he travels through Korea the ghosts of the life he might have had come back to haunt him and past and present blend into a seamless whole as he realizes just how desperately he wants to move on.

Director KIM Dae-sung (Bungee Jumping of their Own, Blood Rain) places his tiny, fragile characters against massive, breathtaking landscapes and his movie accords a respect for the spirituality of simply looking at nature that hasn’t been seen since the quasi-mystical landscape painting of the 19th Century. This is a pitch-perfect melodrama that doesn’t overstay its welcome, distilled to its purest essence and offered to the audience, as cold and refreshing as water from a mountain spring.