Pavane
This review contains spoilers
Here's the thing: I'm not going to sit here and sell you that it reinvents the romance genre. It doesn't. But like Even if This Love Disappears from the World Tonight (which is technically a 2025 movie but it's a cheater that can count as 2026), it leans heavily into the emotion. It's not even fair to say these two movies lean heavily... they just break the door down.
Spoiler: the guy dies. Because why would there be a happy ending? This is Korea, bitch (I say that with all love because I love South Korea and am learning the language).
And you know, it's not even nice about it.
Gyeong-rok and Mi-jeong finally meet up in a snowstorm and then Gyeong-rok gets on the bus, and then it does the romance movie trope where we see her standing there and the bus stops and he comes out. And you fist bump (well, I certainly did) because this is what had to happen. And Gyeong-rok is screeching about loving her and wanting to be together forever and shit and then they get back together. But because this is a Korean romance movie, he gets on the bus and it gets in an accident.
And then their friend Yo-han writes a book inspired by the three of them, but as Mi-jeong reads it, we assume Gyeong-rok isn't around anymore but in the book they are still together but he has memory issues. And she says to Yo-han, "The ending is too happy," and Yo-han is like, "I wanted it to be that way," so congrats, we have another bittersweet romance movie that's engineered to extract all your tears.
And it works. And it's fucked up that it works.
I use these full reviews to just remember specific things that my dumb brain wouldn't remember as time went on, so that's why it's just me ranting about one specific part of the movie.
Because really, it's just a well made romance movie. Leads are likable, good chemistry, good script, emotional, etc.
Spoiler: the guy dies. Because why would there be a happy ending? This is Korea, bitch (I say that with all love because I love South Korea and am learning the language).
And you know, it's not even nice about it.
Gyeong-rok and Mi-jeong finally meet up in a snowstorm and then Gyeong-rok gets on the bus, and then it does the romance movie trope where we see her standing there and the bus stops and he comes out. And you fist bump (well, I certainly did) because this is what had to happen. And Gyeong-rok is screeching about loving her and wanting to be together forever and shit and then they get back together. But because this is a Korean romance movie, he gets on the bus and it gets in an accident.
And then their friend Yo-han writes a book inspired by the three of them, but as Mi-jeong reads it, we assume Gyeong-rok isn't around anymore but in the book they are still together but he has memory issues. And she says to Yo-han, "The ending is too happy," and Yo-han is like, "I wanted it to be that way," so congrats, we have another bittersweet romance movie that's engineered to extract all your tears.
And it works. And it's fucked up that it works.
I use these full reviews to just remember specific things that my dumb brain wouldn't remember as time went on, so that's why it's just me ranting about one specific part of the movie.
Because really, it's just a well made romance movie. Leads are likable, good chemistry, good script, emotional, etc.
Mini Review: South Korea, stop it. You can't keep doing this. That's the second k-trauma this year so far. I will not stand for it. Anyway, so is the plot original? I mean, it's a romance movie. You can probably guess the beats it will take. But the chemistry between the leads is strong and honestly, Korean cinema leans so intensely into the emotional aspects of this that the bittersweet romance is elevated and you just end up blubbering like a wiener.
Watch the Trailer