Sunday, February 8, 2026

[2016] A Man and a Woman | 남과 여

I decided to watch this movie because of Gong Yoo.  I've loved him ever since I first saw him in Coffee Prince so I make it a point to watch his movies or dramas whenever I find them.  I should have skipped this one.

I didn't like it.  Any of it.

The movie starts in Finland with Ki-hong (Gong Yoo) and Sang-min (Jeon Do-yeon) dropping off their kids at a drop off area for a camp.  She asks if he has a light. They start to talk and decide to trail the kids to the camp. On the way back, there's a snowstorm and they end up having to get a room somewhere.  The next day, they go for a walk and find a sauna in the woods and they have a sexual encounter.  The next day, they go home and neither one knows the other's name.

Ki-hong is married and has a daughter.  His wife has mental issues and the young daughter (she might be about 5) suffers from depression.  He's unhappy.  After one of of his wife's breakdowns, her mother tells Ki-hong she is going to have his wife stay with her and she will take the granddaughter as well since she wants to be with her mother.  His MIL says she doesn't blame him because she's always had issues and she married too young.  They live in Finland due to his job.

Sang-min is also married and she has a son.  Her son has a learning disability and it's caused stress in the family.  She seems to be unhappy with her husband. She lives in S. Korea.  I think she was there for the special camp for her son but she had business as well.

So, due to their circumstances, they feel connected and they eventually meet again and start having an affair. Back in Korea, Sang-min decides to divorce her husband and goes back to Finland to be with Ki-hong but while she's there, she happens to walk by a cafe and through the window she sees him with his wife and daughter and he was happy.  She decides to walk away before he can see her.  He sees her back as she exits the door and at first he has no reaction because he doesn't realize it is Sang-min until he sees her profile as she gets into a cab.  His wife had left the table to use the rest room so he was with his daughter.  When he realizes the woman is Sang-min, he grabs his car keys and runs out of the cafe.  He was about to get into his car when he sees his daughter looking sad in the window.

I'll leave it there.  I left out a lot of detail but this is the gist of it.  The only thing that could have saved this movie for me was the ending and that did not go well for me. 




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