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Since his debut in 1996, Kim Ki-duk has released at least one film a year, (with 1999 being the exception), and often releasing two. With The Bow ready to drop Spring 2005, it appears Kim will keep up this pace. Although not even close to the output of Korean directors from back in the day, (Im Kwon-taek averaged 5 films a year in his first 10 years), considering the above-average production quality of his films, this high output is impressive. Yet although I give Kim props for his obvious work ethic and efficiency, this same speed intrudes upon the narrative of his most recent effort, 3-Iron, lessening the impact this film could have otherwise had on me.

Despite what Tony Rayns has claimed in the November/December 2004 issue of Film Comment, Kim does not "shamelessly plagiarize" one of my favorite films, Tsai Ming-liang's Vive l'amour. Yes, our male protagonist (Jae Hee) places flyers on house doors throughout town, for a restaurant rather than a crematorium, and he does take secret, temporary ownership of a residence. But really, that's it. Everyone gets naked in bathrooms at some point in their lives. If anything, Tsai's love of film that is an ironic take on a love of life is merely a tiny starting off point for Kim. Here our protagonist breaks into homes by picking locks, breaking into several homes, not just one. While in the homes, our male protagonist uses the facilities to shower, wash his clothes, eat, sleep, and violate the intimacies of the household. As if meant as payment to the owners, our protagonist also fixes random items in the house and mists their plants, allowing his presence to be spectrally felt by the legitimate proprietors when they return. While in one of these homes, he stumbles upon an abused wife (Lee Seung-yeon - Piano Man) who chooses to float with our male protagonist as our female protagonist within the film. Characteristically for Kim, and like Tsai and a whole bunch of other directors, both protagonists are ghostly silent through most of the film, which has the side commercial benefit of making the film easily mobile across international borders.

In Jung Seong-il's interview of Kim for Screening The Past, Kim, in reference to his film Bad Guy, commented on his preference for "...filming my characters with straight angles as though they were posing for a portrait." Such a preference is vividly on display in 3-Iron, since our male protagonist takes meta-pictures, a picture of him in front of a picture of the official residents of each home, while invading these homes. Kim the artist emerges through these wonderful images. The shot of all shots is a shot of shots where a character is treated to Kim's perpetual cycle of violence. Just look at the wonderful, house-of-mirrors colonnade underneath the bridge as the pummeling begins and continues. The perspective recalls the meshed architecture earlier in the film that allows for the perpetrator to aim squarely. 3-Iron continues Kim's tradition of violent images tinged with disturbing beauty, here the beauty provided by cinematographer Jang Seong-bak.

But 3-Iron leaves me unsatisfied for two reasons. One reason for the limp impact is the acting, which is occasionally not executed well. The female protagonist's husband and the prison guard come off forced and awkward. Lee Seung-yeon's and Jae Hee's performances falter at times. Still, when Jae later practically reverse-anthropomorphizes, those eyes rolled back like a gecko, those preying-mantis-y arm movements, Hee's physicality is strikingly well-performed.

These moments of faulty execution might be better explained by the main reason for my dissatisfaction that I mentioned before - the pace. If anything underscores how 3-Iron is not Vive l'amour, it is Kim's quicker rhythm. Kim cuts quickly from one item to the next. The invasions of the homes are a collage of images rather than a meditative watching of events. I don't require Kim to be Tsai, so such directorial choice is fine. However, this quicker editing seems to be inconsistent with Kim's themes. One of the cultural specifics Kim is working with here is that of the ghost beliefs held by a significant number of Koreans. Although not a literal believer myself, I am a metaphorical believer in "ghosts." That is, ghosts as stand-ins for hidden and denied histories that constantly invade our Presents. Part of what Kim's unconventional ghost tale appears to address is how the disenfranchised struggle like ghosts in order to maneuver around the powerful so that their lives are still fulfilling and, ironically, still human. Kim also had me thinking of those within our homes whom we ignore, the people who built the shelter, who made the stuff we bring in to claim as our own, people whose presence we refuse to acknowledge yet still can't help but feel resonating around us. Each of these themes would have been more effectively explored with long takes that would have allowed this 'Other' energy to seep in more fully, more lastingly. Instead, as if tired of waiting for a cycle of four seasons, I feel as if Kim rushed to get through this film so he could bow to his next project.

Otherwise, those who appreciate Kim Ki-duk's films will find much to mull around here. Violence lurks throughout, surprisingly erupting or clearly signaling upcoming destruction. Besides the violence/love dichotomy, Kim further develops thoughts on home/wandering. One can even see an interesting shot at Corporatist powers-that-be in the use of golf as a weapon. Still, I agree with Rayns' point underneath his condescension -- a condescension to which I can be just as vulnerable in my own private voice; however, I have learned to try to rein this in for my public written voice so as not to risk making unsupportable claims -- that Kim's critique of bourgeois hypocrisies are presented through a similarly hypocritical "outlaw sensibility." Although Kim's 3-Iron desires to imprint a strange sense of presence within absence, I still have yet to turn around and find Kim's spectacle dancing in my personal space.     (Adam Hartzell)

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