In a world where most «art-house» movies are pretentious meaningless garbage, Kim Ki-duk [1960-2020] was one of the few directors whose films are pure art.
♦ Seom (The Isle) ↓ [2000]
Mute Hee-Jin is working as a clerk in a fishing resort in the Korean wilderness; selling baits, food and occasionally her body to the fishing tourists. One day she falls in love to Hyun-Shik, who is on the run for the police and rescues him with a fish hook, when he tries to commit suicide.
♦ Bad Guy ↓ (2001)
The film begins with Han-ki (Jo Jae-hyeon), the leader of a gang of street thugs who patrol a Seoul red light district, becoming infatuated with Sun-hwa (Seo Weon), a college girl he glimpses in another part of the city. When he tries to force a kiss on her he is beaten up by her boyfriend, and his obsession takes an ugly turn. After discovering that she isn’t as innocent as he originally thought, he finds a way to force her into prostitution on the street where he works. Her painful initiation becomes fodder for his voyeuristic impulses, and an uneasy, wholly unconventional relationship develops between them. ~ Tom Vick, Rovi
♦ Spring Summer Fall Winter And Spring ↓ (2003)
This film takes place in an isolated lake, where an old monk lives on a small floating temple. The wise master has also a young boy with him that teaches to become a monk. And we watch as seasons and years pass by.
♦ 3-Iron /»Bin Jip» ↓ (2004 – clip)
A battered woman finds her soul mate in a most unusual manner in this drama from Korean filmmaker Kim Ki-Duk. Tae-suk (Jae Hee Song) is a young drifter who appears to be homeless by inclination as much as necessity; he squats in the homes of strangers while they’re away, carefully seeing to it that no damage is done to the property and sometimes performing small household chores as a display of gratitude. One day, Tae-suk sneaks into a house where a number of photos of a beautiful model adorn the walls. After eating, washing up, and doing some minor repairs, Tae-suk discovers he’s being watched by the woman of the house, Sun-hwa (Lee Seung-yeon), and he soon recognizes her as the model in the photos. However, Tae-suk sees that Sun-hwa has been badly bruised, and suspects she’s been the victim of domestic violence. When Tae-suk returns to the home later that evening, his suspicions are confirmed as he sees Sun-hwa being slapped around by her husband, Min-kyo (Gweon Hyeok-ho). Tae-suk impulsively bursts into the house, grabs a golf club, and attacks Min-kyo with it; moments later, Tae-suk and Sun-hwa ride away together on his scooter, and she silently joins him in his existence as a squatter, which slowly blossoms into a love affair.
← Gafsa ←[Natacha Atlas]
♦ Samaritan Girl ↓ [2004]
Protagonist (Yeo-jin) proceeds to locate and have sex with her dead friend’s former clients, trying to understand her death. (Perversely, she also returns their money and thanks them) Yeo-jin’s widower father, a police, finds her doing this, then tracks down the clients himself, murdering one of them and driving another to suicide after humiliating him in front of his family.
♦→ The Bow ⇓ [2005]
A girl who thought the sea was the whole world became the whole world to one old man.
♦ Time ↓ [2006] (trailer)
Seh-hee and Ji-woo are a young couple two years into their relationship. Though he never acts on his impulses, Ji-woo has something of a roving eye and Seh-hee is intensely jealous and fearful that Ji-woo will soon lose interest and leave her. Believing that Ji-woo is bored with seeing the same, boring her all the time, Seh-hee takes drastic action, leaving him without warning and having drastic cosmetic surgery, taking on a new face, which she hopes to use to snare him again, under an assumed identity, once she has healed. But when Ji-woo shows interest in this new and «improved» Seh-hee, it triggers only more self-doubt and loathing. After all, he may love the ‘new’ girl, but does this mean that he has rejected the old? Seh-hee is utterly trapped in her own insecurities, a situation that prompts Ji-woo to take drastic action of his own.
♦ Breath ↓ 2007 [clip]
Passionate artist Yeon lost an unfaithful husband. Meanwhile, Jiang Jin, a murderer of his wife and children, is waiting for his execution in the death corridor of a prison, regularly attempting suicide to escape the execution. Yeon is fascinated by what she sees of him on television and decides to visit him. Their relationship develops in a semi-oniric world of vanishing walls and poetic seasons.
♦ Dream ↓ 2008 [clip]
In the aftermath of a car crash, a man discovers his dreams are tied to a stranger’s sleepwalking.
♦ Arirang ↓ (2011)
The story that became Arirang began in 2008 on the set of Kim Ki-duk’s previous film, Dream. While shooting a suicide scene, Kim’s lead actress was left hanging from a noose in a near-fatal technical oversight. She was rescued in time, but the incident triggered an emotional and creative breakdown for the once-prolific Kim. Both an autobiographical documentary and an act of self-administered therapy, Arirang traces Kim’s experiences during this period of crisis.
After completing Dream, Kim retreats into self-imposed isolation in a hillside cabin. Having rejected the public world of filmmaking, he’s still compelled by a need to create. So he flips the lens of his small digital camera back on himself, documenting a routine that consists mainly of chopping wood and preparing basic meals. To break the quiet that surrounds his cabin, Kim repeatedly sings the Korean folk song «Arirang,» considered the country’s unofficial national anthem. Kim’s day-to-day life may be simple, but the questions raised in Arirang are not. He’s an aggressive self-interviewer, forcing an often unsettling investigation into sadness and failure. His frankness provides a glimpse into the challenges of artistic practice, the dissolution of friendship and the pain of self-doubt
♦ Amen ↓ [2011 – trailer]
A journey of a Korean girl who wanders around Europe to find her boyfriend.
♦ Pietà ↓ [2012 – trailer]
Kang-do is a heartless man who has no living family members and whose job is to threaten debtors to repay his clients, the loan sharks who demands 10x return with a one month loan. To recover the interests the debtors would sign an insurance for handicap, and Kang-do would injure the debtors brutally to file the claim. One day he receives a visit from a strange, middle-aged woman claiming she is his long-lost mother.
♦ Moebius ↓ [2013 _ trailer]
Consumed with hatred against her husband for his long infidelity, the wife takes revenge against the husband but only inflicting a fatal wound to the son, and then disappears with guilt. For the son who has become miserable because of himself, the husband tries, only to realize that it is not recoverable, so he cuts off his manhood which is the source of all the misery and dedicates himself entirely for his son. As a result, the wound somewhat recovers, but when the wife returns home one day, the family is driven towards a more horrific destruction
♦ «One On One» ↓ [2014 – trailer]
A high school girl is brutally murdered, on May 9, by the seven hitmen wearing masks. Then the villains are immediately hunted down and attacked by seven people from a terror group, «Shadow.» The film asks the audience which side they are on and which one of them they are.
♦ Stop ↓ [2015 – Trailer]
The starting point to Stop is the Fukushima disaster of March 2011, when an earthquake and tsunami triggered a meltdown in three of the plant’s nuclear reactors. A young couple, Miki (Natsuko Hori) and Sabu (Tsubasa Nakae), live within the danger zone and witness its aftermath. Soon afterwards they are evacuated to Tokyo, where a mysterious government agent contacts the pregnant Miki and pressures her to abort her baby, insisting it will be deformed by radiation exposure. Sabu violently objects, partly due to parental pride, but also because the alleged agent is plainly some kind of creepy imposter whose motives are never explained. Miki is initially torn, but eventually concludes that an abortion is necessary.
Sabu then goes into nuclear meltdown himself, tying up Miki with heavy-duty adhesive tape before heading back to Fukushima alone, on a mission to gather photographic proof that the radiation has not caused damage to wildlife. “Human beings are not that weak,” he insists, «this is not Chernobyl.” But among the flood-damaged ruins he finds some disturbing sights. The film’s final act involves a vengeful young man (Hiromitsu Takeda) who sells radioactive meat to city dwellers and a comically amateurish terrorist plot to shut down Tokyo’s electricity supply by toppling a giant pylon with small power tools. There is also a horror-movie birth scene which ends in a bloodbath, but even this feels oddly timid and understated by Kim’s standards.
♦ The Net ↓ [2016 – Trailer]
A poor North Korean fisherman finds himself an accidental defector, and is groomed to be a spy by an ambitious South Korean military officer.
♦ Human Space, Time & Human ↓ [2018 – clip]
People from all sorts of backgrounds set sail on a warship. They get drunk on alcohol, drugs and sex. Later, everyone grows tired and falls asleep, then the ship enters an unknown space enveloped in fog.
♦ Dissolve ↓ [2019 – clip]
Girl-1 bound by a traditional family and household. One day she meets Girl-2 with the same appearance. This girl has a free lifestyle and a rich sponsor who provides her with everything. From this moment on, these two people change roles and help each other. But the further it goes on, the more dangerous the situation becomes for Girl-1.
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