The film is about these three young people whose lives are thrown into uncertainty. Jung-hee, a 21 year-old college student is a lover of dance. She is confused when her father comes back after a fifteen-year absence and finds it difficult to accept him. 25 year-old Keun-woo is a telephone mechanic who enjoys eavesdropping while at work. He gets to know a woman through eavesdropping and falls in love with her. However, he is quite lost as to how he should express his feelings for her. Thirty-year-old In-ho was already a married man when he enlisted in the army two years previous. He comes home on his last leave of absence from the service. He detects something has changed in his wife but does not know what.
Youth is always the best and worst of times, disarmingly confusing yet beautifully meaningful. Kim Young Nam, assistant director on Hong Sang Soo’s Woman is the Future of Man, presents three stories about young adults reaching turnings point in their lives in his creative debut film, Don’t Look Back. Along with Kim himself, the acclaimed film features some of the best new faces in the business. Don’t Look Back won the NETPAC and FIPRESCI Awards at the 59th Locarno International Film Festival in August 2006.
In the first story, 21-year-old dancer Jung Hee (Kim Hye Na - Flower Island and Into The Mirror) finally reunites with her father after years of separation. She experiences a maelstrom of emotional conflicts ranging from affection to the temptation to reject him. The second story follows a 25-year-old telephone mechanic (Lee Sang Woo - Almost Love) who falls in love with a woman whose phone call he eavesdrops on. In the final story, a 30-year-old soldier (Kim Tae Woo - Woman is the Future of Man) comes home on leave and realizes how much his wife has changed since he left. |