Kim Hye-young’s 2025 South Korean romance “Even If This Love Disappears from the World Tonight” adapts Misaki Ichijo’s novel , asking a question that sits at the heart of every love story: what happens when tomorrow erases today?
The film centers on Kim Jae-won (Choo Young-woo), a directionless high schooler, and Han Seo-yoon (Shin Si-ah), who suffers from anterograde amnesia that erases her memories each night. What begins as a dare from his friends—ask out the girl who won’t remember rejecting you—transforms into something far more profound when Seo-yoon unexpectedly says yes.
This premise could easily collapse into manipulation or melodrama, but director Kim emphasizes “the delicate process of how love builds over time”, treating the daily resets not as gimmick but as genuine exploration of what love means when stripped of shared history. Each morning, Jae-won must reintroduce himself. Each day, Seo-yoon falls for him again—or doesn’t. The film finds its rhythm in these repetitions, in the small variations of how she smiles, how he adjusts his approach, how trust accumulates in ways that transcend memory.
The performances by newcomer leads bring raw authenticity that deviates from typical ethereal casting in Korean cinema, making their emotional moments genuinely tear-jerking . Choo Young-woo, in his film debut, handles the impossible weight of being someone’s only anchor with remarkable restraint. He doesn’t play Jae-won as a saint but as a confused teenager trying to figure out if what he’s doing is love or cruelty.
Shin focused on capturing Seo-yoon’s diverse charms and vibrant personality rather than just portraying memory loss symptoms, a choice that proves crucial. Seo-yoon isn’t defined by her condition—she’s funny, stubborn, sometimes frustrated by her diary full of a life she doesn’t remember living. Shin gives her agency, making each day’s romance feel earned rather than inevitable.
The film layers on additional heartbreak: Jae-won himself suffers from hereditary heart failure. While Seo-yoon’s mind erases their past, his body threatens to erase their future. It’s a dual tragedy that deepens the central question—how do you love when time is your enemy in multiple directions?
Kim deliberately carried “a brighter tone than the original novel”, and this proves to be a wise choice. There’s genuine warmth here, moments of laughter in the awkward reintroductions, joy in watching Seo-yoon experience the same revelation repeatedly. The film doesn’t drown in its own sadness but instead finds light in the daily choice to try again.
The direction demonstrates masterful pacing , allowing scenes to breathe, letting silences carry weight. The cinematography favors soft natural light and intimate framing, creating a dreamlike quality that mirrors the fragility of memory itself. When Seo-yoon reads her diary entries, we see her trying to recognize herself in someone else’s handwriting—a powerful visual metaphor for the distance between who we were and who we are.
That said, Kim Jae-won’s character feels somewhat under-explored and “too perfect,” which slightly undermines emotional empathy. The film occasionally treats him more as devoted archetype than fully realized person. We see his sacrifice but less of his doubt, his resentment, the darker emotions that would naturally accompany this impossible situation.
The “safety-first” approach means the script lacks significant creative risks, staying within a predictable framework. The emotional beats arrive when expected, the third-act crisis follows familiar patterns. Yet the film earns its tears honestly, never feeling manipulative despite its well-worn structure.
What elevates “Even If This Love Disappears from the World Tonight” beyond its conventional framework is its willingness to sit with harder truths. This isn’t a story about overcoming obstacles or finding clever solutions. It’s about endurance, about the exhausting emotional labor of loving someone who can’t build a shared past with you. It asks whether love lives in memory at all, or in something more primal—the body’s recognition, the heart’s inexplicable pull toward another person even when the mind has wiped the slate clean.
The film suggests that perhaps love isn’t about remembering at all. Perhaps it’s about the choice renewed each morning, the leap of faith taken without evidence, the trust that builds not in the brain but somewhere deeper. Seo-yoon may not remember yesterday’s conversations, but her body remembers how Jae-won makes her feel safe. Her heart recognizes something her mind cannot retain.
By the end, Kim Hye-young has crafted something quietly devastating—a meditation on impermanence, on loving without the promise of permanence, on being forgotten by the person who means everything to you. It lingers not in grand gestures but in small moments: a hand reaching for another without knowing why, a smile that feels familiar for reasons that can’t be explained, the mystery of why we love who we love even when logic suggests we shouldn’t.
A tender, achingly sincere film that treats its premise with the gravity and grace it deserves.