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Call me strange, but Kim Ki-Duk's THE ISLE is one of my favourite Korean movies. Not just the beautiful imagery, not just those scenes that had people fainting in the theatres, but because I empathised a lot with the characters, and the symbolism of their environment and their actions was very much in tune with my sensibilities. OK, so I'm strange .

Much as I enjoyed watching it, I won't try and argue that watching THE ISLE is a 'pleasant' experience - not one to leave you with a smile, so I was prepared for something a little bit serious and grim with ADDRESS UNKNOWN.

It is not a little bit serious and grim at all... it is *completely* serious and amazingly grim.

Kim Ki-Duk is less interested in exploring the somewhat global issues of human feelings here, but instead wants to explore the feelings of a nation - Korea, still living in the shadow of the Korean war. The characters here come across as a little apersonal (it's ok, I just invented it) because they are embodiments of the country's experience... the division, the loss of autonomy, the dehumanisation that people feel, caught up in the conflicts between North and South and between Capitalism and Communism. Obviously to suggest that this was a universal Korean experience would be unreasonable, though Kim Ki-Duk is not interested in exploring balancing factors in this particular movie. People suffer. And suffer. And suffer. And then they suffer for a while. He is relentless in his examination of the pain that he clearly feels, for himself and for his country.

It must be said that I know almost nothing about Korean history (though I am learning a lot as I type!), or of contemporary Korean society, so I don't know how common the feelings that Kim Ki Duk expresses here are, or how realistic his assessment of Korea's post war condition is. It all feels very believable, very convincing... but certainly none of the Korean people I have met are quite as utterly miserable as they must be if ADDRESS UNKNOWN were an accurate depiction of their lives.

I think there is no doubt that for at least some people, and some communities, the feelings that Kim Ki Duk brings to the fore in the movie represent real feelings and real situations. But I think that it must be assumed that it is not an even-handed assessment of the situation, that he was quite certain what he wanted to say and permitted no deviation from it. In a way this is the movie's undoing... it is so relentless in its pursuit that it becomes too easy to get detached from it, to treat it as political allegory rather than a tale of human hardship. A little more warmth, a little bit of humour, maybe just one or two moments where at least one character was *slightly* happy... and I would have been much more able to bond with them, and their tragedies and miseries would have been that much more poignant as a result.

A fairly small matter, and to a degree this observation may simply be an observation that I am not Korean. The movie is a very personal look at the feelings and circumstances of a nation, and having had no comparable experience myself, it is obvious that I'm going to struggle to fully relate.

If I couldn't empathise with the characters though, I could at least sympathise with them. The characters themselves were good characters, and the performances were mostly very good. Notable exceptions are the American soldiers in the movie, whose English dialogue and delivery is really quite embarrassingly bad The movie is very light on dialogue - little that is important is expressed through words, because it doesn't need to be. Always a good thing in a movie.

It is the younger characters of the movie that are centre stage, those who were born years after the Korean war ended, but are still suffering its consequences. It's always refreshing to see young actors deliver mature performances, and this is one such example.

THE ISLE probably impacted me mostly because of the visuals - the beautifully photographed and haunting environment in which the movie took place. ADDRESS UNKNOWN is not nearly as pretty, which can partly be based on location, but also the fact that the style is a lot more realistic, gritty even, as opposed to THE ISLE's abstractness. It is still well filmed though.

I wrote of THE ISLE after seeing it:

"if you want to take away the beauty of his film, you have to be willing to pay the price of the horror"

ADDRESS UNKNOWN is a less successful movie for me because once you get past it's horror, instead of beauty you find there's just a bit more horror . OK, it's not as bad as that... but the tone is quite unremittingly bleak. I don't know whether to recommend the movie or not. I liked it, but I'm not sure how many others will. Definitely not a movie to put on to take your mind off a troublesome day anyway!

The movie centers on the lives of rundown rural community of South Koreans who happen to live proximate to a U.S. military base. The lives and stories of several citizens intertwine in this bleak and gritty flick. There is a Korean woman and her half-black son, the product of a relationship with a G.I. Another local makes a living collecting and killing dogs he sells for food. A young girl lives a detached life but develops a friendship with an introverted friend who dotes on her, when he's not being beaten and bullied by local toughs. There are more characters in this tale, but most all of them have somehow been adversely affected by the omnipresent US soldiers who drift, comically at times, in and out of their existence. And, the movie overflows with brutality, mostly of Koreans against each other. At some point, most assuredly near the end of the film, the tragedy is so overwhelming it becomes lugubrious. How many bad things can happen to a small community? In this movie there is no end to it, and one wonders what is the point.

Do you love animals? Have you ever ate dog meat? Beware, this film can make you nauseous. This film has an outer cover of a very light drama. But, remember, this is a Kim Ki-duk movie, so intense and deeply emotional. I really love his films for the fact that how creative he is around emotions and creating situations that breaks the cliché and our expectations. Amazing movie.

There's a scene in this film where a man plays with a puppy. When the puppy, wagging its tail, approaches, the man, at first affectionate, slaps its nose. Two or three times. It is the most heartless moment in a cruel and vacuous movie. The cruelty is everywhere and stops the audience caring about anyone or anything. Except the dogs. Couple of questions. How does a bullet in the eye get fixed with what looks like soy sauce? Since when did a traditional Korean family allow a teenage daughter to bonk her U.S. soldier boyfriend in the family home? And where did the director drag up those American actors? Friday night in Itaewon? Boy oh boy they were bad. The boyfriend was bad, out of control and saying truly scary things. He blamed it all on the Korean mountains that were closing in on him. Hello? Calling Planet Earth? On top of that, in a movie set in the 1970s, no period pop music. Unforgivable. A real dog.

Wow. I never felt so scarred after leaving the cinema and seeing a good film. Doom is making it's appearance and it will not go away even after the very end. The whole setting of the film is marvelous. Desolate, hopeless and there's no way out of the barren landscape. All persons are victim of this place, knowing they cannot escape, with all consequences. The fact that those who should have gotten it don't, makes it a very bitter ride. I watched every second, hopeless but fixed to the screen. Only minor is the somewhat overacting of some of the featured American soldiers, but okay still a perfect 9 out of 10. Highly recommended, another fine piece of Korean cinema.