"Na Young" (Moon Seung-ah) and her best pal "Hae Sung" (Leem Seung-min) are pretty much joined at the hip at school. They do everything together. That is, until her family decide that they are going to emigrate to Canada. The young lad is a bit bereft, he doesn't really understand and he certainly doesn't approve! Anyway, off they go and after quite an hiatus, she discovers that he had tried to get in touch previously and so she now gets in contact. Now called "Nora" (and played by Greta Lee), she has married "Arthur" (John Magaro) and moved to NYC, but as they continue to chat online they gradually rebuild their friendship so that a visit from Korea to the USA seems the natural next step. What now ensues are a poignantly constructed series of reminiscences that extol the virtues and innocence of their childhoods but also illustrate how different they have become - even while the underlying bedrock of her relationship with him (and, for that matter with her husband) is probably just as solid - though not in quite the same way. There's a bit of pining, a bit of regret - but the film also fairly optimistically looks at where their lives have got to, and also of where their lives have yet to go. The acting isn't really much to write home about, though Magaro delivers well as the gooseberry. He doesn't speak much Korean and so the chats with their visitor frequently leave him in a sort of nervous, but polite, limbo. There are a few films around just now that focus on reconciliation of those separated by migration when South East Asia was still recovering from post war/French colonial rule - and this one is certainly one of the more interesting and honest. It's not without the odd bit of humour either - and is well worth a gander.

Celine song directed this wonderful and emotionally complex film about holding on to the past no matter how fleeting it is. Ha Young is a young girl living in Korea. She has a crush on a boy at school named Hae Sung. The time comes when her family is immigrating to Canada. It is devastating to young Hae, who is going to miss his friend. Twelve years go by and Ha is now living in New York City and goes by the name of Nora. One day while browsing the internet she looks up Hae out of curiosity. She contacts him and learns that he has also been looking for her. They talk online for awhile, but Nora worries that the time is being taken away from what she should be doing. They stop communicating. Another twelve years passes and Nora is now married to Arthur, a writer. Hao contracts her out of the blue and says he is coming to New York and wants to see her. The scenes when he arrives are golden. The dialogue and conversation and hidden innuendo are flawlessly displayed. They have so much to say to each other, yet so much is not said. It boils under the uneasy surface. The final moments of the film are devastating, but not in the way you might expect. It leaves a longing and emotional feeling that is hard to pinpoint. "Past Lives" soars as one of the years best films and in my opinion should not be missed.

<em>'Past Lives'</em> - quality! It's an engaging watch, I was invested in the two main characters throughout. It does get, by design, extremely awkward at a certain moment towards the end, as I was squirming in my seat; shows how well made it is. Greta Lee and Teo Yoo are excellent, John Magaro plays his more minimal part well too. I don't have much else to note, it's simply an impressively made movie.