Ki-duk Kim

  • Ki-duk Kim – Nabbeun namja AKA Bad Guy (2001)

    Ki-duk Kim2001-2010CrimeDramaSouth Korea
    Nabbeun namja (2001)
    Nabbeun namja (2001)

    In busy downtown Seoul, a thuggish young man notices a fresh-faced college student who sits on a bench. He stares then sits next to her. She looks at him as if he’s vermin, rises and walks to another bench. He sits staring. Her boyfriend arrives, she points to the stranger, the boyfriend shrugs and puts his arm around her to walk away. The stranger starts to leave as well, turns, goes to them, takes her face firmly in his hands and kisses her long and hard. The boyfriend tries unsuccessfully to break them apart, then soldiers beat the stranger. She demands an apology. He is silent. She slaps him and spits on him. They leave. The next day, he sets out to ruin her. How can this end?Read More »

  • Ki-duk Kim – Yasaeng dongmul bohoguyeog AKA Wild Animals (1996)

    Ki-duk Kim1991-2000AsianDramaSouth Korea

    IMDB:
    Two Korean ex-pats meet in Paris by chance encounter. One a petty thief and wannabe artist/painter (Chong-Hae), the other a tough guy (Hong San). Hong San saves Chong-Hae from a gang of thugs and the two become friends. Seizing an opportunity, Chong-Hae and Hong San perform martial arts stunts on the streets for money. A French mobster spots them and recruits the duo as hit men. While in Paris Chong-Hae falls in love with a statue-performer and Hong San yearns for the affections of a local peep-show stripper. After much backstabbing and being caught-up in murder; the duo find themselves at war with their mobster recruiters and each other. Written by Alex L Read More »

  • Ki-duk Kim – Paran daemun AKA Birdcage Inn (1998)

    Ki-duk Kim1991-2000DramaSouth Korea

    Quote:
    With a red-light district in Seoul being demolished, the residents there find they have to relocate. Jin-a opts to leave Seoul and heads to the eastern city of Pohang. There she takes up residence in a boarding house run by a small family. Besides the parents, there is a daughter attending university and a son in high school. At first Jin-a is very happy there, however she continues to sell her body driving her into confrontation with the repressed daughter, Hye-mi. Things go from bad to worse when Jin-a meets Hye-mi’s boyfriend…

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  • Ki-duk Kim – Ag-o aka Crocodile (1996)

    Drama1991-2000Ki-duk KimSouth Korea

    Quote:
    I often quote Kim Ki-Duk as my favourite director of all time, partly because of his prolific output (I’m glad he numbers his films, I was losing count!) and his consistently emotional style. While I absolutely adore the “new-wave” Kim Ki-Duk (3-Iron, Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter…And Spring, The Bow), I also thoroughly enjoy his earlier, grittier films (The Isle, Address Unknown). This film, his debut, is possibly the best and grittiest of the early films. In a setting that stands somewhere between urban and rural, and filled with Kim Ki-Duk’s beloved water motif, we see three misfits (a boy, the title character Crocodile and an elderly man) inexplicably living together on a platform under a bridge. Read More »

  • Ki-duk Kim – Suchwiin bulmyeong AKA Address Unknown (2001)

    Ki-duk Kim2001-2010DramaSouth KoreaWar

    Romances end in blood and the frail hopes of individuals are torn apart in a vile karmic continuity of colonialism, civil war and occupation. After surviving Japanese colonization, Korea became the first war zone of the Cold War. The legacy of war remains today in this divided country. In a small town on the outskirts of an American military base in South Korea, three teenagers, Chank-guk, Jihum and Eunok struggle to find their way in the violent wake of the Korean War. Chang-guk, the son of a Korean barmaid, longs to travel to America to find the soldier father who abandoned him. Timid Ji-hum can’t deal with his boastful, disabled veteran father. And withdrawn Eunok, blinded in one eye by a sibling’s prank, falls for James, a U.S. soldier, who promises to pay for restorative surgery. These three teenagers are the figures in the landscape of this story, which highlights the global implications of a very Korean reality. None of them is able to escape the withering pull of tragedy. All lives collide as each one’s hope and longing for a better future returns upon them like a letter returned stamped in red with “Address Unknown”.Read More »

  • Ki-duk Kim – Hwal AKA The Bow (2005)

    2001-2010ArthouseDramaKi-duk KimSouth Korea

    Plot:
    A sixty and something year old captain has been raising for ten years a girl since she was six in his old fishing vessel that is permanently anchored offshore with the intention of marrying her on her seventeenth birthday. He survives bringing fishermen to fish in the vessel and predicting the future using his bow and shooting arrows in a Buddhist painting on the hull of the vessel while the girl moves back and forth in a swing. He also uses the bow and arrows to protect the girl against sexual assault of the fishermen. They live happily until the day that a teenage student comes to the ship and the girl feels attracted for him. When the teenager discovers that the girl was abducted when she was six and does not know the world, he returns to the vessel to bring the girl back to her parents.Read More »

  • Ki-duk Kim – Shi gan AKA Time (2006)

    2001-2010AsianDramaKi-duk KimSouth Korea

    Consumed by jealousy, a woman takes an extreme step and undergoes surgery for a new face. Although her lover of 2 years misses her, he falls in love with the new face, not knowing it’s the same woman.Read More »

  • Ki-duk Kim – Inkan, gongkan, sikan grigo inkan AKA Human, Space, Time and Human (2018)

    Drama2011-2020FantasyKi-duk KimSouth Korea

    Synopsis:
    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. In the morning, the people wake up to find the ship floating in the air.Read More »

  • Ki-duk Kim – Arirang (2011)

    2011-2020ArthouseDocumentaryKi-duk KimSouth Korea

    Korean filmmaker Kim Ki-duk bares his tortured, inebriated soul in “Arirang,” and it’s not a pretty sight. An experience that can be likened only to being stuck next to a drunk in a bar who keeps reminding you he used to be famous, all his friends are bastards and he now understands the meaning of life, pic might have proved therapeutic to make, but it’s a grind to watch, even for fans of the maverick writer-director’s work. Kim’s rep will inevitably ensure further fest bookings for what is essentially one long whine, but theatrical distribution anywhere looks highly unlikely.Read More »

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