The Isle

2000 Drama

Recalling both the erotic tension and the surrealist imagery of Woman of the Dunes, Kim Ki-duk's film is set near a remote lake where men come far and wide to fish on anchored rafts. Running a little bait-and-tackle shop is the earthy -- almost feral -- young lass Hee-jin (Seoh Jung), who sometimes sells herself for a price to horny fishermen. On one raft is the morose youth Hyun-shik (Kim Yu-seok), who Hee-jin has quietly taken a shine to after saving him from a suicide attempt. His ham-fisted advances are rejected, but after a second try at suicide, in which he puts fishing hooks in his mouth, she nurses him back to health. Soon, a freakily-intense relationship builds between the two in which the jealous Hee-jin starts to brutally dispatch with any competition. This film was screened at the 2000 Cannes Film Festival.

Director: Ki-duk Kim

Starring: Jung Suh, Kim Yuh-suk, Sung-hee Park, Jae Hyun Cho, Hang-Seon Jang

 21 Reviews  4 Awards

Reviews

  • Daring, mesmerizing and exceedingly hard to forget.

    V.A. Musetto - New York Post

    20 January 2013

  • 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.

    Stephen Holden - The New York Times

    20 January 2013

  • 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."

    Michael Atkinson - Village Voice

    20 January 2013

  • 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.

    Roger Ebert - The Chicago Sun-Times

    20 January 2013

  • Sadly, though, all this arthouse exploitation fails to reveal as much about contemporary Korea as, say, "Texas Chainsaw" did about the States.

    Patrick Peters - Empire

    20 January 2013

Awards

  • Ki-duk Kim

    Brussels International Festival of Fantasy Film (2001)

  • Jung Suh

    Cinemanila International Film Festival (2001)

  • Best Actress

    Fantasporto (2001)

  • Ki-duk Kim

    Venice Film Festival (2000)

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