Their first real conversation, set against a rainy Seoul street, crackles with unspoken tension. No dramatic confessions. Just the recognition of loneliness in another person’s eyes. Director Lee Jae-yong (also known for The Harmonium in My Memory ) employs a visual style that mirrors his characters’ internal worlds. Long takes. Muted autumn colors. Frequent framing through windows and doorways — as if we’re always watching from a slight distance, never fully inside their private torment. Composer Jo Seong-woo’s sparse piano score aches without overwhelming.
★★★★☆ (4/5) Recommended if you like: In the Mood for Love , Lost in Translation , A Scene at the Sea
The film’s release also coincided with a loosening of censorship laws in South Korea. Themes like adultery, which could have been moralistically punished in earlier cinema, were now treated with psychological nuance. An Affair walked so films like A Moment to Remember (2004) and The Handmaiden (2016) could run. Upon release, An Affair polarized Korean audiences. Older viewers called it immoral. Younger critics praised its honesty. It won several awards, including Best Actress for Lee Mi-sook at the Blue Dragon Film Awards. Today, it’s recognized as a pioneering K-melodrama — a genre that would dominate Korean television in the 2000s (think Winter Sonata ’s quiet yearning, but with sharper edges).
One unforgettable sequence: Seo-hyun and Woo-in share a silent car ride. The radio plays softly. Rain blurs the windshield. Nothing explicit happens. Yet it’s more erotic than most explicit love scenes — because the film understands that desire often lives in what remains unspoken. An Affair arrived just one year after the 1997 Asian financial crisis, when many Korean women were re-entering the workforce as their husbands lost jobs. Traditional family structures strained under economic pressure. The film subtly taps into this anxiety: Seo-hyun is the stable provider for her mother, sister, and son, yet receives no gratitude — only expectation. Her affair isn’t just about passion. It’s about reclaiming a self she had forgotten existed.
However, I can offer you a about the 1998 film An Affair (also known as Jung Sa or An Affair ), directed by Lee Jae-yong and starring Lee Mi-sook and Lee Jung-jae. This article will focus on its cinematic significance, themes, and legacy — without promoting piracy. The Unspoken Depths of An Affair (1998): A Korean Melodrama Ahead of Its Time In the late 1990s, Korean cinema was undergoing a quiet revolution. Before the global explosion of Oldboy or Parasite , directors were peeling back the country’s conservative social layers. One film that masterfully captured this shift was Lee Jae-yong’s An Affair (1998), a delicate yet devastating exploration of forbidden love, societal pressure, and emotional repression. A Plot That Breaks the Rules At first glance, the premise seems familiar: Seo-hyun (Lee Mi-sook), a 38-year-old gallery curator and devoted mother, begins a secret romance with her younger sister’s fiancé, Woo-in (Lee Jung-jae). What could have been a sensationalist drama becomes something far more introspective. The film never excuses adultery, but it refuses to villainize its characters. Instead, it asks: What happens when a person who has sacrificed everything for family suddenly recognizes her own quiet desperation? Performances That Speak in Silences Lee Mi-sook delivers a career-defining performance. Her Seo-hyun is a woman of few words, but every glance, hesitation, and solitary cigarette conveys decades of suppressed longing. Opposite her, a young Lee Jung-jae (now an international star from Squid Game ) brings an aching sincerity to Woo-in. He isn’t a homewrecker; he’s a man equally trapped — by his family’s expectations and his own youth.
