FAQ

The Lake House is a Hollywood remake of Il Mare.

Voice actor Kim Eun-ju (Jun Ji-hyun) is moving from Il Mare, the seaside house she has been renting. She leaves a Christmas card in the mailbox asking the next tenant to forward any mail to her new address. Architectural student Han Sung-hyun (Lee Jung-jae) moves into Il Mare and finds Eun-ju's card in his mailbox. The only problem is that Eun-ju is living in the year 2000, while Sung-hyun is in 1998. Once they realize their difference in time, they continue to correspond with each other over the next three months, eventually trying to find a way of meeting in person.

Siworae (aka Il Mare) was written by South Korean screenwriters Kim Eun-jeong and Yoeh Ji-na. The movie was remade in English as The Lake House (2006) (2006).

Il Mare is Italian for 'the sea'. It is the name that Sung-hyun gives to the seaside house when he lived there. The Korean title Siworae translates as 'love across time.'

Time warp movies are often hard to follow. It is made difficult in Il Mare because Eun-ju and Sung-hyun are separated in time by two years. However, thanks to the magical mailbox, their correspondence takes place simultaneously. It might help to look separately at each of their timelines to see how they fit together. (Sung-hyun's timeline is presented in bold). On or around 22 December 1999, Eun-ju moves out of Il Mare and leaves a Christmas card in the mailbox asking the next resident to forward her mail to her new address. On or around 22 December 1997, Sung-hyun moves into the newly-built house, names it Il Mare, and finds Eun-ju's Christmas card and forwarding request in his mailbox. On 7 January 1998, Sung-hyun replies, suggesting that she find another way to retrieve her mail. On 7 January 2000, Eun-ju receives the reply from Sung-hyun telling her that her letters keep winding up in his mailbox and that she should find another way to retrieve her mail. On 9 January 2000, Eun-ju warns Sung-hyun about an impending snowstorm that will bring with it a flu epidemic in 1998. On 9 January 1998, it starts to snow, and Sung-hyun catches the flu.

By now, they're both beginning to realize that the mailbox is allowing them to send messages back and forth in time. Sometime in February 2000, Eun-ju asks Sung-hyun to retrieve a tape recorder that she left on a subway bench on that date in 1998. Sung-hyun retrieves the tape recorder and gets his first glimpse of Eun-ju who, of course, doesn't recognize him because she didn't know about him in 1998. Also in February 2000, Eun-ju plans to send Sung-hyun a newly-published book of architectural designs about his father, but she is hit by a car and hospitalized, so she doesn't get the book to Sung-hyun. February 1998, Sung-hyun's father dies before he receives the book from Eun-ju. Over the next few weeks, they amuse themselves by taking each other on 'dates', Sung-hyun in 1998 and Eun-ju in 2000, and they plan to meet each other on Cheju Island on 11 March 2000, a few days away for Eun-ju but two years in the future for Sung-hyun. Eun-ju waits for him on 11 March 2000, but Sung-hyun doesn't keep the date. On 25 March 2000, Eun-ju asks Sung-hyun to go to a cafe in Youido in order to stop her boyfriend from leaving for the United States in 1998. Sung-hyun agrees to go. Eun-ju doesn't hear from Sung-hyun again.

The book was meant to be delivered to Sung-hyun before he goes to the hospital to see his estranged father. Because of the accident, however, Eun-ju didn't deliver it in time. If Sung-hyun had read the book before his father died, he would have known how much his father really loved him.

Cola was a stray dog who moved into Il Mare when Sung-hyun was living there in 1997 and then stayed around after Eun-ju moved into the house in 1998.

Eun-ju visits Sung-hyun's construction firm and sees the drawing that he made of the house being built on Cheju Island. She learns that he designed it for her but that he was killed in a car accident in March of 1998 while on his way to meet someone in Youido. Eun-ju suddenly realizes that it was her fault Sung-hyun was killed in Youido, so she races back to Il Mare to leave a note telling him not to go. Fearing that he won't get her note in time, Eun-ju kneels beside the mailbox and cries. She remembers sitting in that cafe with her boyfriend and seeing a man walk across the street toward them. The man was suddenly hit by a car and died in front of her. She realizes that the man was Sung-hyun. The final scene shifts back to 22 December 1999, the day that Eun-ju is moving out of Il Mare. A stranger walks up to her and introduces himself as someone about to tell her 'a long story.' It is Sung-hyun, alive and well in 1999. Although Eun-ju still doesn't know him, he shows her the note she wrote warning him not to go to Youido. He actually did get the note in time and he waited for two years to pass so that he could meet Eun-ju in person.

Sung-hyun died on 25 March 1998. Eun-ju moved out of Il Mare in December of 1999, so Sung-hyun was already dead in Eun-ju's timeline. However, by sending him the note warning him not to go to Youido on that date, Eun-ju altered history and 'saved' Sung-hyun in his timeline. Sung-hyun then has to wait almost two years in his timeline so that he can show up at the mailbox in December 1999, just as Eun-ju is moving out of the house.

The most likely answer is that Eun-ju believed her 'don't go' letter didn't make it to Sung-hyun in time and that he died on 25 March 1998, so she had no need to keep checking the mailbox for his letters. In his timeline, Sung-hyun may have continued writing letters to Eun-Ju, but without getting replies from her, he probably concluded that she was no longer checking the mailbox. Knowing that it would be fruitless to try and meet Eun-ju at places like the subway bench because she never heard of him until 2000, he chose to wait the 21 months until his time caught up with hers on 22 December 1999, the day she moved out of Il Mare.

Other than the American-made remake, The Lake House, similar movies that have been likened to Il Mare include the American-made Somewhere in Time (1980) (1980) in which a young man uses self-hypnosis to travel back to the 1900s in order to meet a famous stage actress with whom he has fallen in love; the American-made The Love Letter (1998) (1998) in which a young man and woman are separated by a century and exchange love letters through an antique desk; the South Korean-made Donggam (2000) (Ditto) (2000) in which two students separated by 20 years in time communicate through an antique ham radio. Other time warp movies of interest include The Butterfly Effect (2004) (2004) in which a man repeatedly moves through time trying to effect a change, and Groundhog Day (1993) (1993) in which a man is stuck in a time warp that keeps repeating itself. In The Langoliers (1995) (1995), an aurora borealis-like rip plunges an airplane into the future. In Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure (1989) (1989) and Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey (1991) (1991), Bill and Ted move through time with a time machine. Ditto for The Time Machine (1960) (1960) in which a man uses a time machine to travel to the year 802,701. In the Back to the Future series, Back to the Future (1985) (1985), Back to the Future Part II (1989) (1989), and Back to the Future Part III (1990) (1990), it is a car that serves as the time portal. In (2000), a radio links a father and son, and in The Time Traveler's Wife (2009) (2009), a man suffers from a genetic "chronome" impairment that causes him to move back and forth in time. In Kate & Leopold (2001) (2001), a man crosses a time gap near the Brooklyn Bridge and finds love.