We were someone else’s first love

First love is an amazing experience which makes your legs refuse to walk away, turns your face deadly pale, and takes your breathe away. This is how the main character Seung-min felt about his first love Seo-yeon. For the first moment Seung-min met Seo-yeon, blood rushed to his face, and he could not see anything but her. This is how Seung-min, in his twenties, found his first love so sudden and so sweet. Of course, we are not an exception. Many of us have had an experience of having our heart stolen away completely by our first love. Just as Seo-yeon to Seng-min and Seung-min to Seo-yeon, we all were someone else’s first love! The movie “An Introduction to Architecture” released in this March also talked about the sudden and beautiful moment of first love.

How the first love shatters into pieces

His story
The boy, Seung-min is a shy, indecisive person and inexperienced in love. He fell in love with Seo-yeon at first sight in the class of an Introduction of Architecture. However, the boy was too young and too silly to realize how Seo-yeon felt about him. Though Seo-yeon liked him and waited for him to come up to her, he did not have enough courage to hold her hands. Back then, he felt inferior because of his poor background; single parent, his mom financially supported him by selling Sundae gukbab and he had neither expensive clothes nor a fancy car. Feeling a sense of inferiority, the young boy thought that only the guy who has a fancy outlook and drives a nice car can get a girl. Therefore, the boy possessed by his inferiority misunderstood Seoyeon and made foolish mistake by letting go of her hand. He gave up his first love and even blamed Seo-yeon as a heartbreaker who only likes rich guys. Fifteen years later, the grown up boy with a broken heart was engaged to a rich girl just to break out from his reality though he did not have feelings for her.

Her story
The girl, Seo-yeon is also very shy, passive, and unskilled at love. She liked Seung-min very much and hoped for him to make a move. So she indirectly expressed how she felt about him. However, the boy was too hesitant, and failed to understand her sincere heart. Therefore, her first love ended with disappointment and sadness. Since then, she complied with the reality over time; failed her first marriage with a doctor. In addition, her dad who is everything to her was now sick. The girl at that moment was staggering from this cruel reality and looking for the place to rest. And then, she recalled her first love, the boy, and looked for faded innocence of her twenties. At last, she found her first love, Seung-min who was already an architect at that time. He built her a house after 15 years.

This is how their first love stories end. Both the boy and the girl were young and bashful. They were both inexperienced in expressing their genuine love, and did not have enough courage to talk about how they felt about each other. Keeping their love to themselves, they drifted farther away from each other. However, fifteen years later, these two broken hearts resolved a misunderstanding and soothed their wounded hearts.

Reasons why this movie is so popular

Filmed by director Lee Yong-ju, “An Introduction to Architecture” captured many peoples’ attention even before its release brcuase of its actresses Su-ji, a famous teen star and Han Ga-in, one of the most beautiful actresses in Korea. This movie attracted more than four milion movie-goers in just a month after it was released on the box-office.

Painful but beautiful first love
The biggest reason why so many people love this movie is because of its theme; first love. First love is sympathetic regardless of sex and age. First love is a beautiful and amazing experience that many people cherish. It is a rare experience that gets your blood flowing and turns the whole world upside down. However, if your first love failed and remained as a heartache in heart like Seung-min and Seo-yeon, it would not always be as beautiful as it may seem. Someone may have suffered or even be suffering from painful memories of their first love simply because they do not know how to express and react to this strange feeling that they have never experienced before. Literally, it is first love! That is, people love this movie since this movie recalls audiences’ first love stories regardless of whether their first love made them cry or smile.

Nostalgic 90s elements
Interestingly enough, this movie is particularly beloved by men and women in their thirties, who went to college in the 90’s. This is mainly because there are many nostalgic elements of the 90’s in the movie. For example, nostalgic songs by Exhibition, popular 90s band in Korea, played thorough out the whole movie. Moreover, there are props widely used in the 90’s such as pagers, hair spray and CD players. Especially, many audiences members in thirties would feel a strong emotional connection to the scene where two of the characters are listening to music with CD players together.

Conclusion
In conclusion, The UOS Times definitely recommends this movie to those who want to recall their innocent first love memories and feel the fresh, thrilling feeling of campus romance once again. The poet John Clare described the moment of falling in love for the first time as “I never saw so sweet a face. As that I stood before, my heart has left its dwelling-place and can return no more.” As such, to everyone first love is an unforgettable and valuable experience that is uncontrollable and does not make any sense at all.