Dream

A man and a woman's life becomes entangled as she does what he dreams, or in other cases,he experiences what she does while sleepwalking. Its a storyline that Kim-Duk should feel right at home with. And for the first twenty five minutes or so it looks promising. Rich atmosphere with tasteful use of music. I was just waiting for him to really start WORKING with the story and ideas at hand.

I don't think he does that. To me it looks like Kim-Duks abandons much of his graceful soul-searching in favor of fleshy melodrama. Especially the awkward shouting-scene at the field, but the whole film has something contrived about it. The main-character are very illogical in their thinking, with may indicate that the film is meant to work on a allegorical level, but I'm dubious. The cinematography too strikes me as bland, with some interesting exceptions. There are faint echoes of 3-Iron here, the film that more and more stands out as his masterpiece, but lacks most of its subtle grace.

Well, until the end that is. The breathtaking and magical scene where she "escapes" confirms that Kim-Duk still has it in him,(but I'm not wild about how it ties everythinkg together so neatly), as much as i respect him as an artist, i think Kim-Duk needs to relocate and form ranks.

Coming from Kim Ki Duk, I expected much more out of this movie. If you've read the summary, you've basically spoiled the entire movie for yourself.

Even the shots of this film were dull compared to Kim's other films.

Odagiri Joe also speaks entirely in Japanese in this movie, while all other characters speak in Korean, yet everyone understands each other. If you don't speak either language, you may enjoy the movie much more than I did.

Overall, I can only give "Dream" a 4/10. Die hard Kim Ki Duk fans be warned.

In this unusual and slightly ominous romantic fantasy from Korea, Joe Odagiri stars as Jin, a young man who experiences a foreboding nightmare about a traffic accident and feels compelled, upon waking, to travel to the same spot he visited in the dream. As it turns out, a hit-and-run accident indeed occurred there; curious, Jin tails the police to the home of the suspect - a beautiful young woman named Ran (Lee Na-Young) who vehemently denies involvement and cites, as an alibi, the fact that she slept the entire night. Jin relays the specifics of his dream to the cops and insists that they arrest him; they dismiss him as a crank and arrest Ran instead, but in time the young man and woman discover a bizarre pattern: when he dreams of specific events, she acts out those events in real life.

Dream (or Bi-mong, as is the Korean title) is already Ki-duk's 15th film. It's also the 15th Ki-duk film I watched so obviously you can consider me a fan. Ki-duk is a director who's known to stay pretty close to what he does best, so even though the differences between Dream and his earlier films might not seem stellar, they do present a big deviation for Ki-duk standards. Yet in the end, Dream is still 100% Ki-duk and couldn't have been made by any other.

Central to Dream is the casting of Jo Odagiri, Japanese acting talent who's often considered to be Tadanobu Asano's professional twin (and rightfully so). Odagiri is known for his interesting choices in film and his foreign appeal. Even their looks seem to match from time to time. Odagiri plays a large part in Ki-duk's latest and marks Ki-duk's first big deviation. It's the first time a foreign film star takes the center stage in one of his films.

Probably even bolder is the fact that Odagiri is allowed to speak Japanese throughout the whole of the film. There is no language barrier for the characters, which is a pretty rare choice to make. Even though it is never specified whether Odagiri plays a Japanese or Korean character, the way Japanese and Korean are mixed is very unnatural. Still, after a few minutes of getting used to it only works in favor of the film as Odagiri can focus on acting rather than struggle with a foreign language.

Ki-duk's second departure from his signature style is the amount of dialog featured in the film. Not exactly the first time he allows his characters to communicate verbally (cfr Time - Shi Gan), but it still feels very un-Ki-duk-like. On the other hand, it fits the film well and Ki-duk does a much better job of handling the dialog than he did with Time. And even though there might be more dialog to Ki-duk standards, there are still pretty long stretches were characters do little more than grunt and act, especially near the end of the film.

Apart from these two deviations, all crucial Ki-duk elements are still very much in place. There are the strong key performances, very troubled and somewhat enigmatic characters, a touch of magic and at the end there is hope, tragic as the events might have been. And in between all that there is enough confusion and symbolism to keep people who like to puzzle more than satisfied.

Visually Ki-duk is aiming for a more outspoken visual style here. He's not completely succeeding but the key scenes are all well directed and from time to time there is some stellar imagery to admire. Still, there is room for improvement as some scenes still feel a bit bland compared to the others. Much better is the soundtrack, which is every bit as mystical as it is special. Though a little overdone in the dream segments, the singing near the end of the film really gives the film some extra chills and cuts right through the bone. No idea which language was used for the songs, but it fit the film wonderfully.

Apart from the strong leads, the big plus of Dream is it's exceptional concept. Rather than spoil it here - it is much nicer to find it out for yourself - I'll say that it is every bit as magical as Bin-Jip's finale. Ki-duk eases the viewer into the story and goes full out in the last half hour, turning the film around again to be all you'd expect from a Ki-duk film. Characters are hurting, reality is often as flaky as dreams can be and tragedy lies just around the corner.

The scene in the field near the river marks a shift to Ki-duk's usual trickery and from there on the film is elevated to a higher level. Odagiri is as strong as ever, his female companion acts on an equal level and the both of them really bring Ki-duk's Dream to life. If you get past the excessive dialog (for a Ki-duk film at least) and accept the quirky (but smart) mix of Korean and Japanese, Dream's another Ki-duk film rivaling the best of his previous work.

Since Bin-Jip, only Shi Gan was a small disappointment. Apart from that one, Ki-duk seems to be on a roll with a string of near-masterpieces almost uncontested by any other director. That said, I think Ki-duk is still missing that final touch to make his films into true full-fledged masterpieces. Some more attention to the visual side and a little more attention to the integration of the soundtrack, but it seems he's getting there, slowly but surely. Odagiri's presence was a smart move, so was the strong and exceptional idea behind the film. One of Ki-duk's best, no doubt. 4.5*/5.0*

I watched this movie at the festival of ''Film Ekimi'' in Istanbul.

I got excited when I learned that Kim-Ki Duk's film would be shown in the festival,I guessed we were going to watch a nice movie and at the end of the film I was not mistaken.

Film's subject is shortly;A man dream she caused a car crash, then discovers a real hit-and-run accident. The driver is arrested by police as the prime suspect, though she claims she was not responsible.

The film is very impressive and has got a shocking scenario.Kim-Ki Duk handled human relationships successfully and he edited very well.I hope many people will watch this movie..