Yeo-min (Seok Kim) is not your average nine-year-old boy. He's intelligent, compassionate, sensitive, and wise beyond his years. He's also a tenacious fighter who will beat the hell out of any bully who threatens his friends.

His two best friends are a girl named Keum-bok (the cute and spunky Ah-hyeon Na) and a boy named Ki-jong (Myeong-jae Kim). When he's not in school or playing with his friends, Yeo-min does odd jobs - including housecleaning and delivering love letters for an ailing recluse - to earn money to buy his mother sunglasses so nobody will ridicule her or react in horror at her ruined eye, which she injured in an industrial accident while working at a factory.

One day, Yeo-min's world changes completely when a new girl joins his class. Her name is Woo-rim, (Se-yeong Lee, who was actually 14 years old at the time of filming) and she's a pretty girl from Seoul who has come to live in the village. While Woo-rim may be pretty and wear fancy clothes, she's also a terrible snob and a compulsive liar.

Yeo-min tries to befriend her, but she wants nothing to do with him. After she insults him, Yeo-min gets even by dunking Woo-rim's new shoes in water. The teacher beats him severely in front of the class. (The child-on-child and adult-on-child violence is quite brutal in this film; the beatings and fights look frighteningly real, and the kids do their own stunts) Despite this, Yeo-min feels sorry for Woo-rim. He senses that her bad attitude is an act to conceal some kind of problem she's having. He's right.

When Woo-rim chases the class rabbit into a creek and gets stuck in deep water, Yeo-min risks his life to save her from drowning. Thankful but confused, Woo-rim can't understand why a boy she treated so cruelly would want to risk his life to save hers. Yeo-min tells her that he shares his father's belief that men must always protect women - even the ones they don't like. Woo-rim is touched, and she and Yeo-min become friends. Yeo-min begins to experience the joys and pains of first love - something he's never felt before.

Keum-bok can't stand seeing her best friend Yeo-min pay attention to Woo-rim. She is heartbroken and seething with jealousy. She has always loved Yeo-min but never had the courage to tell him. Outside the school building, Keum-bok angrily shoves Woo-rim to the ground. She responds by slapping Keum-bok across the face hard enough to bloody her nose. The girls get into a nasty fight. Yeo-min sees them, breaks up the fight, and sides with Woo-rim. In a heartbreaking scene, Kuem-bok cries uncontrollably and calls him a traitor.

Keum-bok vows to destroy Yeo-min and Woo-rim's relationship. She tricks a bully named Gorilla into provoking Yeo-min to fight, knowing that Woo-rim would end their relationship if Yeo-min broke his promise not to fight. Gorilla makes a cruel remark about Yeo-min's mother, and Yeo-min pounces on him and beats him to a bloody pulp.

Woo-rim sees this and tells Yeo-min that their relationship is over. He tries to explain that he was defending his mother's honor, but she won't listen. Hurt, he lashes out at her, saying that he never really liked her - he befriended her out of pity. After their painful breakup, the teacher rubs salt in Yeo-min's wounds by accusing him of stealing Woo-rim's money.

Woo-rim is forced to deal with her feelings for Yeo-min, (who still loves her) her compulsive lying, and her guilt over her strained relationship with her father, which she was never able to repair because he died suddenly in a car accident. Before she returns to Seoul, Woo-rim bravely stands before her classmates and makes a heartwrenching confession that leaves her classmates - and the viewer - in tears.

When I Turned Nine is yet another great film from Korea. It features a cast of talented child actors whose performances are natural, realistic, and better than Hollywood's overcoached Stepford children could ever be. These Korean kids have a tremendous range and ability to convey genuine emotion.

Superbly acted, directed, written, and photographed, and based on a beloved and acclaimed novel, When I Turned Nine is a beautiful and moving drama that you won't soon forget.