Synopsis
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 with Hyun-Shik, who is on the run from the police, and rescues him with a fish hook when he tries to commit suicide.
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Cast
- Kim Yu-seokHyun-shik
- Suh JungHee-jin
- Seo WonEun-ah
- Son Min-seokDal-soo
- Cho Jae-hyunMang-chee
- Jang Hang-seonMiddle-aged Man
- Han Ji-SunJeong-ah
- Kang Jeong-sik40-Year-old Fisherman
- Choi Hye-kyeongYoung Lady #1
- Jeon Seon-hwaYoung Lady #2
Recommendations
- 88
New York Post
Daring, mesmerizing and exceedingly hard to forget. - 80
The New York Times
A movie of extremes, and that goes for its aesthetics. As gory as the scenes of torture and self-mutilation may be, they are pitted against shimmering cinematography that lends the setting the ethereal beauty of an Asian landscape painting. - 80
Village Voice
Kim's movie rocks -- I saw it cold a year ago, and I don't think I've been as entranced and appalled by an Asian film since Shinya Tsukamoto's "Iron Man." - 75
Chicago Sun-Times
This is the most gruesome and quease-inducing film you are likely to have seen. You may not even want to read the descriptions in this review. Yet it is also beautiful, angry and sad, with a curious sick poetry, as if the Marquis de Sade had gone in for pastel landscapes. - 70
The A.V. Club
At once predatory and vulnerable, Jung has a primitive intensity that speaks louder than words, carrying an enigmatic and often maddeningly elusive film that's short on dialogue, rational behavior, and narrative logic. - 60
Film Threat
The increasingly creepy plot is counter balanced by a genuinely tender romance, which makes the film impossible to categorise, and will no doubt limit it to obscure arthouses and cinephiles who have very strong stomachs. They won't be disappointed. - 50
TV Guide Magazine
The film nevertheless exerts a strange sort of power that makes for compelling viewing, even as its images force one to repeatedly look away. - 50
New York Daily News
Eerie, opaque and unblinkingly sadomasochistic.
