My Mother, the Mermaid


My Mother, the Mermaid is a 2004 South Korean romantic fantasy film directed by Park Heung-sik. It follows 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.
WWW 2004fantasy.co.kr

Synopsis

Na-young is an office worker who lives with her seemingly emotionally non-existent father Jin-kook, and loud cynical mother Yeon-soon. 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 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 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.

Cast