None of the film's principal characters are ever given names. At least one female character never even shows her face. In Buddhism, a central aim of enlightenment is the extinction of the self. Essentially, Buddhists abandon the notion of themselves as separate individuals and see themselves as part of a larger whole. Only the non‑Buddhist police officers who apprehend the Adult Monk are identified by name.
The floor bears the inscription 'The Heart Sutra', regarded as one of the principal sutras of Mahayana Buddhism, composed in Literary Chinese.
Kim Ki-duk: the adult monk who appears at the end of the film.
The film is featured on Roger Ebert's 'Great Movies' list.
South Korea selected Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring (2003) as its official entry for the Best Foreign Language Film category at the 76th Academy Awards, held in 2004.
The piece of paper the apprentice and the Master used to cover their eyes, mouths and ears bears a Chinese character meaning 'to close' or 'to shut' (pronounced 'bì' in Mandarin).
Two sequences show the young monk rowing to the shore of the lake, only to find the older monk already standing on land, which raises the question of how he left the floating monastery without the boat. The mystery is resolved when the police arrive to take the young monk away; as they pull away, the rowing boat comes to a halt as if something is holding it back. The young monk looks at the elder in surprise, and then the elder finally lets go and the boat moves on. Later, after they have gone, the elder once more appears to use his mind to draw the boat straight back across the water to the monastery. As Roger Ebert wrote, "The rowboat seems to float toward the master at his bidding." That explains how the elder master reached the shore in those earlier instances.
When the younger monk, as a child, rows across the lake in a small rowing boat to cause mischief in the freshwater pool, the elder monk "inexplicably" appears behind him to observe his behaviour. The elder monk shows up in the same way when the younger man, now middle-aged, goes to throw a tantrum in that very pool after returning from the "world of men" where he has killed his wife. It is later revealed that their floating temple moves around the lake, seemingly with purpose. Whether this motion is supernatural or the result of some mechanism is not disclosed. The suggestion, however, is that the monk can reach the shore and walk around the lake without the boat.
The hermitage that serves as the setting for Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring is a purpose-built, man-made structure designed to float atop Jusanji Pond in Cheongsong County, North Gyeongsang Province, South Korea. Dating from 1720, Jusanji Pond is an artificial lake whose waters reflect the surrounding mountains.
