I have to admit, I'm so glad I didn't watch this movie in a theatre. It wouldn't have given me the option to fast forward through the second half of the movie to get it over with. Not that I think it's a bad movie, but I just feel like I didn't have the stomach for it.
But even after speed-running the latter half, I think I managed to (sort of) understand what Kim Ki-Duk was going for. And as a director, I have nothing but the highest respect for his vision. I always felt he has had a very unique perspective when it comes to issues of the societal human vs the carnal human; often told in correlation to Buddhist philosophy... which I must admit, is a pretty damn ballsy thing to do. And this movie takes all of that carnal perversity and amplifies it to its psychological and visual extreme.
A major drawback of the film in my opinion is the lack of dialogue. I understand the thematic reasons for why Kim would choose to tell the story this way (his movies usually are very dialogue light), but the fact that he had to insist on no dialogue at all just made the characters feel restricted at certain times: not from conflict, but just the director saying "do everything but speak".
Apart from what I've said, I don't think there's anything more to express. That's pretty much it.
But even after speed-running the latter half, I think I managed to (sort of) understand what Kim Ki-Duk was going for. And as a director, I have nothing but the highest respect for his vision. I always felt he has had a very unique perspective when it comes to issues of the societal human vs the carnal human; often told in correlation to Buddhist philosophy... which I must admit, is a pretty damn ballsy thing to do. And this movie takes all of that carnal perversity and amplifies it to its psychological and visual extreme.
A major drawback of the film in my opinion is the lack of dialogue. I understand the thematic reasons for why Kim would choose to tell the story this way (his movies usually are very dialogue light), but the fact that he had to insist on no dialogue at all just made the characters feel restricted at certain times: not from conflict, but just the director saying "do everything but speak".
Apart from what I've said, I don't think there's anything more to express. That's pretty much it.