Late Blossom (그대를 사랑합니다)

Love is always an open arms. If you close your arms about love you will find that you are left holding only yourself and relish love in the old age is like an aged wine; it becomes more satisfying, more refreshing, more valuable, more appreciated and more intoxicating!

Late Blossom (그대를 사랑합니다) is a 2011 South Korean film written and directed by Choo Chang-min about the love story of two elderly couples who live in the same neighborhood.

Four senior citizens, Kim Man-Seok (Lee Soon-Jae), Song Ee-peun (Yun So-Jeong), Jang Kun-Bong (Song Jae-Ho) and Jang's wife Jo Soon-yi (Kim Soo-Mi) living in a hillside village.

Kim is a widow and a cranky milkman with a short fuse and a foul mouth. He wakes the village early each morning with his noisy, battered motorcycle to deliver the milk in the neighborhood. One day when he goes up a slope, he meets Song, a lonely woman who scavenges for scrap paper to sell for her daily expenses while roaming around the town at daybreak. Both of them had a tragic post-love story; Kim had a loving wife but he neglected her and eventually led to her death due to an unattended cancer; Song believes she is getting bad karma for leaving her mother and not being able to save her sick child when her husband left them. As two of them meet again and again each days, Kim feels something special towards Song and they slowly develop the kind of love which makes Kim smile from ear to ear just at the thought of Song.

Song parks her handcart at a junkyard and gets to know Jang, the caretaker of the parking lot next to the scrap yard. Jang has a wife who suffers from Alzheimer's after their three children left them to start their own families. Jang works from dawn till late at night and takes care of his wife after work when he comes home. One day, Jang wakes up late to work and forgets to lock his house door and asks Song to fasten it for him. Meanwhile, Jang’s afflicted wife, Jo walks out from the unlocked house and wanders around in the town. Fortunately, Kim sees her in the playground and drive her around to find her home. Jo happily sitting on the back of Kim’s motorbike and thinking that is Jang who driving her in a blossom garden.

The film revolves around four of them, a simple yet truly endearing tale of beautiful twilight love. You will smile for the sweetest moments between Kim and Song and laugh for the funniest friendship times between them until the bittersweet ending of the two couples that makes you cry.

Towards the end of the film, Jang gathers all his three children, daughter-in-laws, son-in-law and grandchildren in his house just to see them the last time before he griefs to make the decision to commit suicide together with his wife after he finds out that she is suffering from a terminal illness. In an enclosed room with charcoal burning stove, Jang says to his wife, "I will still want to be with you again in our next life ... ..." The next morning, they were found died on the bed holding each other hands.

After attending the funeral, Song decided to leave Kim as she realised that death will happen to them in the near future too and she will not be able to bear the bitterness of separation with Kim. She wants to keep the sweet memories of them in her heart.

The film ends with a doctor removing the oxygen mask from Kim in the hospital while he smiling and imagines of driving Song on his back in his old motorbike ... ...

Life's greatest happiness is to have someone hand in hand in life. 

Movie Trailer: