The Classic is a 2003 Korean romantic drama film directed by Kwak Jae-yong.
It follows the stories of a daughter and mother, Sung Ji-hye and Joo-hee (both played by Son Ye-jin) respectively, as Ji-hye reads from an old box of letters about Joo-hee's romance with a man named Oh Joon-ha (Cho Seung-woo) and Love Triangle involving Ji-hye's father, Yoon Tae-soo (Lee Ki-woo). In between the Flashbacks to her mother's story, Ji-hye has her own romantic troubles with a student she loves, Sang-min (Jo In-sung), who is dating her best friend So-kyeong because of letters Ji-hye wrote him under So-kyeong's name as a favor to her.
Tropes in The Classic:
- Abusive Parents: Tae-soo's father is cruel and physically abusive, with a habit of beating Tae-soo with his belt (something Tae-soo implies happens frequently, given how off-handedly he mentions it at one point).
- Arc Words: "When the sun shines...", due to being from a poem that both Ji-hye and Joo-hee receive.
- Arranged Marriage: Ji-hye's parents, Joo-hee and Tae-soo, were made to be married due to Joo-hee's father being a congressman and thus an influential prospect.
- The '60s: Most of Joo-hee's flashbacks take place in this period, with a brief feature of the Vietnam War.
- Bittersweet Ending: Joo-hee and Joon-ha were never able to fulfill their love, and ended up marrying and having children with other people. But those respective children, Ji-hye and Sang-min, fall in love and are able to be together.
- Bug Catching: During their time together at the river, Joon-ha catches one of the fireflies as a gift for Joo-hee. In the final scene, this is repeated, as Ji-hye sits in the same position on the bridge over the river that her mother did when Sang-min catches a firefly for her.
- Disappeared Dad: Ji-hye's father Tae-soo is mentioned to have died when she was younger. Her mother's still around, but never appears in person in the present.
- Driven to Suicide: Tae-soo attempts this in an effort to let Joo-hee and Joon-ha be together after his father beats him for being their messenger, but it doesn't take.
- Fan Disservice: At one point there's a slow camera pan over Joon-ha and Tae-soo's exposed buttocks, but the effect is made less than appealing because of the welts on them from a beating with a baseball bat they took from a bully before school.
- Generation Xerox: The parallels between Ji-hye and Joo-hee are very similar. Both of them meet a boy (Sang-min for Ji-hye, Joon-ha for Joo-hee) and when it began to rain, the two couples happen to run under the same tree for shelter. Both of them write or receive letters written under another's name from their Love Interest (Ji-hye writes love letters to Sang-min under So-kyeong's name and Joo-ha receives love letters under Tae-soo's name from Joon-ha). And both couples meet hardships in the form of a Love Triangle and an annoying friend (So-kyeong, Tae-soo) who interferes with their relationships. In the end, Joo-hee wasn't able to be with Joon-ha and they both married other people. But for Ji-hye, Sang-min returns her feelings and they find out his father is Joon-ha because he has the same necklace that Joo-hee gave Joon-ha, making things come full circle.
- I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: Twice. Tae-soo tries to commit suicide so Joo-hee and Joon-ha can be together, but all it does is make Joon-ha feel guilty and leave for the military. After returning blind from his service in the Vietnam War, Joon-ha lies to Joo-hee about having gotten married so that she can move on from him. She only finds this out when his friends track her down to fulfill his Last Request years later.
- Karma Houdini: There's no indication that Tae-soo's father suffered any consequences for his horrific abuse of him. Depressingly Truth in Television.
- Last Request: Joon-ha's was to have his ashes scattered in the river at which he and Joo-hee had their first date, and for Joo-hee to have a box of all the letters he wrote to her.
- Love Letter Lunacy: Much of the plot is based on the love letters written under others' names. Ji-hye wrote love letters to her crush Sang-min under So-kyeong's name as a favor to her, while Joon-ha did the same thing for Tae-soo to Joo-hee.
- Love Triangle: Two as part of the Generation Xerox; the present one is Ji-hye/Sang-min/So-kyeong and the past is Joon-ha/Joo-hee/Tae-soo.
- Pink Girl, Blue Boy: Ji-hye wears a pink sweater vest and Sang-min wears a blue sweater during the rain scene.
- Playing Cyrano: Joon-ha wrote Tae-soo's love letters to Joo-hee, and in the present, Joo-hee's daughter Ji-hye writes letters for So-kyeong to Sang-min.
- Posthumous Character: Tae-soo is long deceased, though the cause of death is never mentioned. It's revealed that Joon-ha is also this in the present, having died years prior.
- Proscenium Reveal: Right after Ji-hye returns Sang-min's umbrella to him upon realizing he deliberately left it at the store so he could join her in the rain, leading to them confessing their feelings to each other in the theater, the next scene is of So-kyeong in a hospital bed and claiming to Sang-min she cut her wrists because she saw him confessing to someone else...only to pan out to show the audience watching them in the theater, revealing it's all part of Sang-min's play.
- Sealed with a Kiss: The film ends with Ji-hye and Sang-min sharing a kiss after he gives her a firefly at the river.
- Title Drop: Ji-hye finds the first letter (a poem) she finds in the box corny, but also thinks it's charming because it's "a classic". It's the same poem that's in a card that Sang-min gave her in one of the presents he gave to her and So-kyeong.
- Two Lines, No Waiting: The movie goes back and forth between Ji-hye's narrative in the present and her mother Joo-hee's narrative in the past, told through flashbacks from the letters.
- Umbrella of Togetherness: A variant. Ji-hye and Sang-min run together under his coat in the rain after they're both caught out in the rain with no umbrella. Ji-hye later finds out Sang-min did have an umbrella but deliberately left it behind when he saw Ji-hye in the rain and went to join her, which is what leads to The Reveal of his feelings for her.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: Joo-hee keeps the firefly that Joon-ha caught for her, but it doesn't show up again after Joo-hee mentions to Joon-ha that it's still healthy. Presumably it died, due to fireflies' short lifespans. A more major example is So-kyeong; she never appears again after Sang-min breaks up with her at the play and her reaction to Ji-hye and Sang-min's relationship is not shown.
