I would describe this movie as a slice-of-life story of a young girl's first love, set in rural Korea in the early 1960s. It is not particularly romantic, though you can see how certain scenes are romanticized and fraught with meaning from Hong Yeon's (the student) point of view. For anyone who ever had a serious crush during their teen years, where every action by your beloved can cause one to fall into depths of despair or rise to ecstatic flights of fancy, the moments shared in this film will be very familiar.

The story unfolds in scenes from the everyday life of our three protagonists, so expect the pacing to be slow and meandering, punctuated by lovely songs from that era that would be familiar with Western (i.e., non-Asian) audiences. The ending and credits come as a lovely surprise.