I was not sure what to expect from this film when reading the two commments here before seeing it. My conclusion is that Summer Time goes quite in the same sense of the erotic french drama's from the eighties like "37°2 le matin" with Béatrice Dalle, "La Bonne" with Florence Guérin or even "Breathless" with Richard Gere and Valérie Kaprisky. They all have in common that they play during a very hot summer and combine tame nudity (showing breasts - you can see more flesh at any European beach during the summer nowadays...) and sweaty lovemaking in a dimly lit place while the ventilator hums in the background. So far so good. All of these movies do have in common that they are a bit dull when it comes to the storyline. But more later and also my opinion about the two previous comments...
When I put the DVD into the player I was so surprised! The leading actress (the cheating wife) is played by a very famous korean singer (she also sings the end credits - great song!) from the former pop group Roo'Ra (spoken: Rula) that she would show off so much was really surprising (I have a Roo'Ra VCD with their best songs brought home from my last visit in Korea). She indeed is quite a lovely sight...
Now on to the story. The plot is indeed very meaningless. Student revolutioneer hides from the officials in a rural town and rents a room on top of a young couple. He discovers several peeking holes and watches the bored wife dance and stretch/work out in sexy lingerie on her bed. The student protests are just used as a vessel for the reason of him being there and has nothing to do of whatsoever with the story. Also the end is pretty clear you see the husband carrying a gun occasionally throughout the movie the reason for showing these scenes made the ending not at all surprising. But back to the hiding student. He watches the couple having very unloving sex with each other. When the hubby comes home from night shift he just jumps onto his sleeping wife from behind and takes her, then stops as soon as he's finished - and that happens every day. When the husband loses his keys the student jumps on the opportunity and does the same thing with the bored and always faking sleep during intercourse housewife. The second time she notices him and they start an affair. So most of the movie is spent showing quite tame lovemaking as it can be seen in the above mentioned French movies. The plus of Summer Time is that the lovemaking is shot quite beautifully the minus is that there is not really much of a story going on. You later find out that the husband has raped his wife when they first met while he wanted to arrest her father and she, not knowing what to do after loosing her "pride" followed him and they married. He loved posessing her pretty body but none of them really loved each other in fact she hated him but for whatever reason stood with him. You could say that my opinion varies a little from the two previous ones. The film certainly wasn't a harsh sex movie that only adults can watch (nowadays) nor was it displaying the student struggles of the early 80ies in South-Korea. It is just a nice erotic teaser for people who like to see something else besides the ordinary XXX flicks. It's for fans of "art" movies and tasteful erotica. Fans of a good plot with many twists and p*rn will be disappointed but all others should give it a try when in the right mood at a warm summer evening with a glass of wine.
