The Way Home () is a 2002 film written and directed by Lee Jeong-hyang. It tells the heart-warming story about a grandmother and her city-born grandson who comes to live with her in a rural village. The film, which reminds the younger generation of the unconditional love and care that old people selflessly give, won South Korea's equivalent of the Oscars for best picture and screenplay. It was the second-highest grossing homegrown film in South Korea in 2002. It was released on DVD and VHS, with English subtitles, in 2003 by Paramount Classics. The film is in the List of highest-grossing films in South Korea, with 4,091,000 number of admissions nationwide. Plot The story begins on a fine summer's morning, when Sang-woo (Yoo Seung-ho) and his mother board a bus to the country. It is soon clear that the unsophisticated rural passengers annoy the seven-year-old urban boy. His mother is taking him to live with his 78-year-old mute, but not deaf, grandmother (Kim Eul-boon) while she looks for a new job after a business venture failed in Seoul. Eventually they reach their destination, a dusty bus stop in the Korean countryside near an unsophisticated village. By now Sang-woo, who has arrived with junk food and toys, has no intention of respecting his mute grandmother especially as her house has neither electricity nor running water. His mother apologizes for leaving the boy, telling her own mother it will not be for too long before leaving on the next bus. Alone Sang-woo ignores his grandmother, not even wanting to look at her even calling her a byungshin, or "retard". Next morning, his grandmother starts another day. She goes down the hill to get clean water and washes her clothes at the river. She also tends the melons that she will sell at the market. One of the Grandmother's neighbors is a hard-working country boy who attempts to become friends with Sang-woo, who declines until the end when he apologizes for making fun of him. The other is a young girl who Sang-Woo falls in love with, but she is more interested in the country boy. The grandmother, who also cares for her old friends very much, lives a simple and humble life. Eventually, from constant play, Sang-woo's Game Boy runs-out of batteries so he asks his grandmother for money for new ones. But she is poor and has none. Selfishly he teases