『A Desperate Connection and Hope for Family Between Two Women Who Dream of a Future Together Amid Forbidden Love』
🎥 Film Overview
🎬 Title: Having a Child with the One I Love (사랑하는 사람의 아이를 낳는다, 2016)
🌍 Country: 🇰🇷 South Korea
🎞️ Genre: Drama / Short / Queer Romance
🗓️ Production & Release: Independent, 2016
⏳ Runtime: 26 minutes
📢 Director: Jung Ji-yoon
🖋️ Screenplay: Jung Ji-yoon
📺 Platform: Screened at domestic independent and queer film festivals
👩💼 Cast: Han Jae-hee – Jeong Min
Lee Tae-kyung – Yoon Sung
🧩 In-Depth Story Analysis (Spoilers)
🌿 A Pure and Strange Detour for Eternal Love
Having a Child with the One I Love tells the story of Jeong Min and Yoon Sung, a same-sex couple, and presents a unique narrative where they attempt to achieve enduring love—blocked by societal norms—through a proxy plan for the future. Their idea of "each having a child and marrying those children to each other" is not a mere joke but a powerful metaphor for the pure and desperate desire of queer couples in Korean society to preserve their love forever.
👶 Securing Eternal Love Through the Marriage of Children
The central plan—"each of us will marry someone else, have children who resemble us, and then marry our children to each other"—carries deep thematic weight:
- Creating a “Legacy” of Queer Love: Jeong Min and Yoon Sung accept the reality that two women cannot physically have a child who resembles both. Instead, they each plan to marry a man, have a child in their own image, and pass on their bond through their children in a way that is socially and legally accepted. Their children's marriage would represent the eternal continuation of Jeong Min and Yoon Sung’s love in a socially sanctioned form.
- Paradoxical Embrace of the System: Rather than rejecting heterosexual norms entirely, the plan cleverly utilizes traditional institutions like marriage and childbirth. This becomes a survival strategy, where a queer couple borrows the language of the dominant system to preserve their love safely. It also reflects their quiet resignation to a society that excludes them.
👰 Separation in Reality, Inheritance of Hope
The film emphasizes the purity and continuity of this unusual plan by weaving between past and present.
- Past (Innocent Pact): As high school students, Jeong Min, fully aware they cannot have children together, proposes this whimsical plan in a romantic effort to be with Yoon Sung forever. It stands as a youthful vow of eternal friendship and love, naive yet touching in its sincerity.
- Present (Thread of Hope): With Jeong Min's heterosexual marriage approaching, we see the reality of societal pressure. Yet as the two women drive together and revisit old memories, it's clear that despite the practical decisions of the present, their deepest emotional bond still lies rooted in that quirky plan from the past. Present choices reflect societal roles, while the past and their private promise remain an unchanging spiritual vow.
- After the Marriage: The final scene, showing Jeong Min gazing at her child, implies that the child is not just her offspring, but a symbolic medium of her love with Yoon Sung—a vessel for future hope. Through this child, the two women anchor their bond in society and plant the seed of their ultimate union in the next generation.
✨ Eternal Lovers in the Name of “Friends”
Their relationship illustrates a strategic form of love where romantic feelings are preserved under the social label of “friendship.”
- Social Camouflage: After their heterosexual marriages, maintaining their relationship as “best friends” becomes the perfect disguise to avoid suspicion. Within the framework of societal norms, they create a safe and lasting bond known only to them.
- A New Form of Family: Ultimately, the film proposes that "family" isn’t defined by the heterosexual spouse, but by the deep emotional bond between Jeong Min and Yoon Sung, with the child as their non-institutional co-parenting symbol. Yoon Sung acts as the soul partner and co-parent, forming a genuine family structure beyond traditional systems.
- Desire to Preserve Love: Jeong Min’s plan stems from a powerful fear of losing Yoon Sung, fueled by intense love. This longing to protect their relationship from the harsh realities of the world—and even pass it on to future generations—embodies the urgent desire for permanence in queer love.
🌴 Where Romanticism Meets Realism
This film places the romantic fantasy of “achieving love through their children” atop the harsh reality of needing to marry heterosexual partners, securing a unique place in Korean queer cinema.
It asks the audience to reconsider what love truly means. If one cannot be with the person they love, then the desperate yet pure attempt to continue that love through the next generation might be the truest proof of love. Having a Child with the One I Love tenderly captures a bittersweet and impossibly romantic oath born in the midst of South Korea’s rigid social systems.
🎯 Personal Rating (Based on Taste)
💕 Love Scene Intensity: ♥
⭐ Rating: ★★★★
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