90
The New York Times by Dana Stevens
An exquisitely simple movie. Mr. Kim manages to isolate something essential about human nature and at the same time, even more astonishingly, to comprehend the scope of human experience.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
100
Christian Science Monitor by David Sterritt
Kim's movie conjures a sense of spiritual discipline as suspenseful as it is stunning to watch and exhilarating to contemplate.
80
A sublime, witty, gritty and transcendental movie reflecting one man's life journey.
70
Exquisitely crafted drama.
90
Los Angeles Times by Kenneth Turan
As meditative and beautiful as its title would indicate. What is a surprise is the extent to which it manages to be involving if you can put yourself on its wavelength.
80
The Hollywood Reporter by Kirk Honeycutt
Kim Ki-duk keeps dialogue to a minimum and actions simple in what is virtually a two-character piece. Humor arrives organically, often resulting in hearty laughs.
80
Village Voice by Michael Atkinson
Far from a maxim-expounding sermon, the film is a fresh spring of irrational visual pleasure.
70
It IS a little obvious, but that's the way it goes with spiritual enlightenment. The film's lessons are plain--spoken aloud, even--and deal with the close relationship between what can be shed in this life and what binds people to the world in spite of their best efforts to purify.
91
Entertainment Weekly by Owen Gleiberman
The triumph of ''Spring, Summer'' is that even those of us who don't happen to be Buddhists can catch a glimpse of ourselves in the spinning wheel of hope, destruction, suffering, and bliss.
90
The film unfolds at a deliberate pace, with a soundtrack occupied less by dialogue than by the sounds of water flowing and crickets chirping. And if you listen carefully enough, you might just hear the sound of one hand clapping.