My Mother, the Mermaid is a 2004 South Korean film about a young woman who quarrels with her mother but is somehow transported back in time and sees her parents' courtship. In her youth, her mother was a haenyeo, a traditional freediver.

Synopsis

Na-young (Jeon Do-yeon) is an office worker who lives with her seemingly emotionally non-existent father Jin-kook (Kim Bong-geun), and loud cynical mother Yeon-soon (Go Doo-shim). As time passes, she is becoming more and more like her mother Yeon-soon. One day, her father suddenly disappears and she skips her international airplane flight to find him. By entering her father's hometown, she is somehow transported back in time to when her parents' relationship was just beginning. She meets her mother, now a poor young woman (Jeon Do-yeon) working hard as a haenyo to send her younger brother to school to get the education she never received. Her father is a charming man (Park Hae-il) who works as a postmaster who delivers mail all over the town where her mother lived. He befriends Yeon-soon and teaches her how to read and write. Na-young is taken in by the young Yeon-soon and, as they are now roughly the same age, the two become very close. Na-young is able to experience the trials, heartbreaks, and celebrations of Yeon-soon before she herself is suddenly transported back into the present time.

Awards and nominations

2004 Busan Film Critics Awards 2004 Blue Dragon Film Awards 2004 Korean Film Awards 2004 Director's Cut Awards 2005 Baeksang Arts Awards 2005 Chunsa Film Art Awards 2005 Grand Bell Awards