Spring, summer, fall, winter...spring

Kim Ki Duk should stick to sex and themes around it. This movie is his attempt to understand Buddhism, but I thought it was oversimplified. It takes us through a boy's journey through the different stages of his life. How he lives with his master and undergoes training with him, how he decides to runaway with a woman  and enter the worldly life of Samsara, how he gets so involved in the material world, murders, and suffers and then reclaims his life back after returning to the monastery again. Havent we heard this a hundred times?
Of going through a worldly life, experiencing attachment and suffering and renouncing everything to attain Nirvana. Also to note, the second lifestage when the boy explores his sexuality has to be the longest segment (Kim ki duk!). My problem with the movie was the lack of details in the most crucial stage of his life, when he starts suffering, realises and resurrects his life. Which is precisely what I loved about Samsara, or even Herman Hesse's Siddhartha...both don't refrain from barging into the explosive confusion space filled with a myriad complex questions.
Overall, visually very beautiful, but lacking in substance and questions.