Nowadays, there are various movies dealing with love and dating.  Have you ever imagined your love and dating could be like those portrayed in movies? 
There are many remarkable Korean movies of the twentieth century dealing in love and dating.  These movies will show the changes of viewpoints and various aspects of love and dating in Korean society.

 The Theater of the Youth 1940's
This movie's background is the Japanese occupation.  It has all the aspects of popular melodrama but describes the enthusiasm and frustration of young people of those days very well.  We can also notice the custom of marriage, that is, parents decide the spouse and their children should follow the decision.  In addition, even though men or women had more freedom than in the past, and were educated in a western education system, they had a tendency to love only one person in their life, especially in the case of women.

 Consequently, during the Japanese occupation, most people were conventional, passive, and conservative in their dating.  So meetings for relationships in those days happened generally in hometowns, but rarely at school.

The Bare Foot Youth 1950 
This movie is about love and dating in the 1950's.  The story concerns a gangster who is an outsider of society and criticized by people.  One day he meets a beautiful girl, who is the daughter of a diplomat.  They love each other and their love was getting deeper and deeper in spite of their different social status.  But her mother is stubbornly against their love.  The couple tried to persuade the parents continuously. So they felt that their love couldn't be realized.  At last, they commit suicide together.  This movie has typical and popular aspects of a melodrama. It reflects the gloomy and vain atmosphere of the 1950's, when the Korean War had ended as was shown through the couple's suicide.  They tried but the circumstances prevented them from being happy.  

 Also, we can feel some traditional values that parent's opinions were still important in choosing a spouse and it was unrealistic to be a happy couple between different status.
Free Marriage 1960’s 
This story is about a rich family consisting of a medical professor father, a mother, and their three daughters.  Mrs. An, the mother, always worried about her daughter's marriage.  She wanted arranged marriages for all of them.  But her daughters try to marry by their own will. 
   Although the eldest daughter married because of her mother's will, she failed in a happy union with her husband by confessing her first love accidentally.  In the case of the others, the second one was forced to have an arranged marriage, but she loved a poor tutor of her sister and finally won her love in spite of her parent's strong objection.  The youngest one also met two men with an open view of marriage.  She chooses the one with beliefs different from her parents' whishes too.  

    In this movie, we can notice the big change those men and women met freely and marry by their own will.  This trend was really a new and amazing one, compared with the past.  However, there still remained the traditional parents who chose spouses for their children.
The March of the Fools 1970’s
The dating trends of college students and other young people during the 1970's is shown in this movie. These young people who have grown up under the impact of western culture, which has developed rapidly in those days, have many experiences caused by those complex cultures in the campus and outside society.  Their conflicts have both aspects of humor and self-scorning, but they are maturing more and more through those kinds of conflicts and experiences. In the wave of industrialization, the young generation of the 1970's had already experienced the love of new trend, which gave an advance notice of the beginning of today's generation.

The Contact 1990’s  
Deals with the advance of communication technology and its impact on dating. One night while making a song request to a radio music program thinking of a past love the radio producer mistakes the identity of the caller as one of his past loves and contacts the girl on the internet.  Despite the mistake, they made a date to meet. Nowadays many people meet on the Internet and sometimes they develop their relationship into marriage.
   
 Beat 1990’s 
 This movie describes the free and courageous teenager's love and dating.  The story involves two intrepid generation x gangsters searching for a shred of optimism in an otherwise bleak future.
We can see another way of meeting in this movie.  That is the blind date auction. The woman chooses her partner through the auction then; she has the right to order him to do anything she wants for a day.  It might be said to reflect materialism in modern society.   

In the past, most young people were conservative and followed parents' opinion or social customs rather than their own will in marriage or love. The value and pattern in love and dating has been changed since industrialization began and western culture influenced our lifestyle. And also, they considered the most important thing in choosing partners was their own will.  In addition, they had chances to meet in various places such as a school, a workplace, and even public places.  Despite people freely met each other, arranged marriages were still prevalent and once they married, they seldom divorced.

Nowadays, however, through an age of transition, the basic way of thinking in love and dating has been changed entirely. Most young people don't think they have to marry someone with whom they have dated any more.  They meet someone freely and break up their relationships more easily than before and we can notice these phenomena even in marriage.  The ratio of divorce has increased rapidly since the 1980's.
   
The new ways of dating have been introduced and won popularity.  For instance, blind date meetings are very common, and regarded as inevitable which the young have to experience at least once; they blind date with several other couples, or with one by a recommendation of others, and with a public meeting. Moreover, women’s roles have become more positive so they often propose dating to men. 

Dating through the communication system is becoming increasingly popular with young people.  Who meet each other in chat rooms on the Internet,  telephone chat lines, and via pagers. This trend is becoming rapidly more common, so it’s likely to be the typical way of dating in the not to distant future. This might allow people to meet their life partner from the safety of their own room.