My Love, Don’t Cross That River

              This documentary film is such a sad, sweet love story.  In so many ways it’s absolutely heartbreaking, but it is not a film to miss.  If anything, you must see this film to see that great loves truly do exist.

                Jo Byeong-man and Kang Kye-yeol are a South Korean couple who have been married for over seventy-five years.  They live alone in a somewhat rural area, and are madly in love.  Arranged in marriage when Kye-yeol was only fourteen and Byeong-man was about nineteen, this couple has lived the ups and downs of life side by side.  Six of their twelve children died at a young age, and they worked hard to have the possessions they have now.

                Even though they are in their nineties, this couple still acts like a young couple in love.  They tease each other, and have leaf and snowball fights.  Their clothes frequently match, and they spend most of their time with each other.  While all of this is wonderful to watch, the most heartwarming thing is how often this couple holds hands.  They do this as they support and love each other through everything.  That is probably why it is especially sad when their kids ruin Kye-yeol’s birthday.  Instead of just celebrating, the kids get into a fight.  As they do this, Byeong-man and Kye-yeol sit side by side and cry, together in their sorrow as they are in their happiness.

                Throughout the good and the bad times, the couple prepares for the death of Byeong-man.  He is nearing the age of 100 and is very ill.  As you watch the film you can see how the illness Byeong-man has affects his body and ability to move.  Kye-yeol prepares for her husband’s death by buying long-johns for their children that died.  They could not afford them before, and now she wants Byeong-man to give the long-johns to them in the afterlife.  Kye-yeol also starts to burn Byeong-man’s clothes, as is custom, so he will have them to wear on the other side.

                If you don’t want anything ruined for you, I suggest you stop reading right here.  I say this because I’m going to tell you that Byeong-man does die.  Kye-yeol wanted to die at the same time, hand in hand, but that did not happen.  Instead she is left to mourn.  As this is where the film ends, I wonder how long it was before Byeong-man came to bring Kye-yeol back with him, or if he has, yet.  With as much as these two people loved each other, I really hope they are not apart for too long.

                The love between Byeong-man and Kye-yeol is one I think practically everyone wants to have.  They have been together decades, through good times and bad, and yet they are still crazy about each other.  Three quarters of a century they were married, and Byeong-man still could not sleep without touching his wife.  This couple had the kind of love that people dream of.  They had a love that is very hard to find.  When it feels that this kind of love can no longer exist, I suggest putting in this film, because it proves this kind of love still does.