The Summer (2023) - Geu Yeoreum - FULL LENGTH Movie Reaction! PATREON COMMISSION!
Added 2025-06-13 17:00:04 +0000 UTC*SUMMERTIME SADNESS HEADPHONE WARNINGS*
It's summertime and this movie was NOT what I expected! It's so realistic, bittersweet, and moving! This is my first Korean animated reaction, and if the quality is like this feature, I can only hope to watch more in the future!
Thanks to patron @_sunspots for the Commission this month! This movie had me with SO much to talk about!
LINK TO PIP REACTION: https://share.vidyard.com/watch/LwjurSdsaDHWdkG9m6Mtjv
Thank you for watching with me and for all the support!
Comments
Yessss, honestly, after Bloom into You, I will not turn away Yuri! 😀And yes, I love that we’re getting some animation from other countries up in this! And yeah, Mignon and No Love Zone sound about right, though I have read On and Off outside the channel! ;) I really love how “down to earth” this series is - it’s so good! The communication, the realism, the grounded nature where it’s not just sunshine and roses - there are parts in this that hurt to watch for how real they were! This was honestly one of the movies I’ve had more fun dissecting because there’s so much at work with it! “Tender” is such a beautiful way to describe it as well! I agree, I was really happy that this wasn’t just about tropes that we would expect or the coming together of a relationship but the maintenance of it – Sui was such a good character to look into - with how stoic and craving walls she was to shield herself as a queer woman, whereas Yigyeong wanted freedom and the opposite - to be seen as herself and be free to express it. The question of such resistance - yes! I love that talk about conformity and the urge to exert independence! I agree with all your sentiments in this! You know, the audio “issues” - let’s just chalk it up to it being a “stylistic” choice! ;) Oooh, that’s interesting about Lost in Starlight! I’d love to eventually get into it if the opportunity presents itself! Thank you for the comment and all the information! And YES! HAPPY PRIDE MONTH! I’m so excited for the remainder of June and July’s commissions! 😛
Romaniablack
2025-06-22 23:10:56 +0000 UTCLoved the reaction and discussion! It was definitely time for some more yuri on the channel! 🥰 Korean animation is also really coming into its own style, I feel, and I look forward to seeing more and more (I think the only Korean ones before on the channel were Mignon and No Love Zone?) And The Summer definitely stands leagues apart from other animated GL, in my opinion. Primarily in terms of the actual relationship it shows, the way they communicate (and profoundly don’t), the lack of infantilisation, etc. It is such a delicate and realistic portrayal of two people coming to the realisation that they need different things, and can give things in a relationship which don’t match what the other person wants. Absolutely agree with the point you raised about the two of them being “a mountain and a river.” Overall, the whole discussion around the issues in the way they communicated and the layers upon layers of complex emotion – was so excellent! Deconstructed all the communication pitfalls brick by brick. I love the tender approach of the film – the colours, the animation, the environments, the OST and the use of silence as you noted. I think it all works so well to showcase the way the film does not judge them or blame them. It is still so rare to find explicitly queer media (and much more so GL) which goes beyond coming out tropes, or the ‘getting together,’ and where external forces are not the primary obstacle, etc. So I loved discovering this film where the focus is on the actual personalities and emotional needs of the people in a relationship. Sui is also a really good example of a character who is pathologically self-reliant, we talk about this a lot with the likes of Natsume and Vash. 😭 And this is an excellent showcase of how this kind of independence and selflessness can really cross the line into selfishness. Pre-empting rejection and judgement by self-deprecation and by assuming the worst of others. Again, not something I often see shown through female characters. Themes of resistance? Also here! 😆 In resistance to conformity – with Yigyeong wanting to live a different “urban” life than she could have expected in the rural environment where she grew up; with Sui’s chosen invisibility against what may be expected of her as a queer woman in a more ‘open’ environment. For Sui, I also saw more of the class and education divide impacting her view of herself. I think there were definitely some audio problems during production, likely just lack of budget – all the versions of this I’ve found (official and less so) have that same audio issue you noted. Jiwon Han (the director and one of the two credited writers) started her career quite recently, did a short before The Summer (both in 2023), and now just a few weeks ago had a Netflix full-feature length animated film release called Lost in Starlight. I won’t go into any details about it and I may commission it sometime next year. But Jiwon is definitely someone I will be following and seeing everything she does, really love the visual style of her work and the way she treats her characters. 🥰 Happy Pride Month! 🥰 Looking forward to next week! 💙
Sunspots
2025-06-15 13:35:15 +0000 UTC
