Director Kang Mija, who gained attention with Let the Blue River Run (2008), has released her second feature film after several years. Based on the eponymous short story from Kwon Yeo-seon’s collection Good-bye, Drunkard, the film tells a tragic and pure love story between Yeong-gyeong, a severe alcoholic, and Su-hwan, who suffers from severe rheumatism. While the film is adapted from the short story, it has been crafted as a poetic work. Narrative context and explanations are largely excluded, and instead, the film features raw, powerful, and even surreal shots that repeat in a rhythmic, poetic manner. The emphasis on scenes of excessive drinking, indifference, and endless waiting evokes a profound sense of pain. Spring Night is a film that evokes intense agony, leaving viewers with a lingering sense of suffering. After watching, we, too, might feel as though poetry wells up inside us, or perhaps we, too, find ourselves crying beneath the blooming magnolia tree. (JUNG Hanseok)