My Mother, the Mermaid

My Mother, the Mermaid (Korean: 인어공주; RR: Ineogongju; lit. 'The Mermaid Princess') 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.^[1][2][3]

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.

• Jeon Do-yeon as Na-young / young Yeon-soon
• Park Hae-il as young Jin-kook
• Go Doo-shim as Yeon-soon
• Kim Bong-geun as Jin-kook
• Lee Sun-kyun as Do-hyeon

• Official website (in Korean)
• My Mother, the Mermaid at the Korean Movie Database (in Korean)
• My Mother, the Mermaid at IMDb
• My Mother, the Mermaid at HanCinema