The Isle (2000)
"Seom" (original title)

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 to ... See full summary »

Director:

Ki-duk Kim

Writer:

Ki-duk Kim

Stars:

Jung Suh, Yoosuk Kim, Sung-hee Park

5 wins & 2 nominations.

Cast

Credited cast:
Jung Suh	...	Hee-Jin
Yoosuk Kim	...	Hyun-Shik
Sung-hee Park	...	Eun-A
Jae-hyeon Jo	...	Mang-Chee
Hang-Seon Jang	...	Middle-aged man
Rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Yeo-jin Kim
Won Seo

Storyline

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 to Hyun-Shik, who is on the run for the police and rescues him with a fish hook, when he tries to commit suicide.

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Plot Keywords:

fishing | fish hook | fish | mute | food | 

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Genres:

Drama | Thriller

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Certificate:

Unrated

Details

Country:

South Korea

Language:

Korean

Release Date:

22 April 2000 (South Korea)

Also Known As:

The Isle

Box Office

Budget:

$50,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend:

$4,546 (USA) (23 August 2002)

Gross:

$21,075 (USA) (15 November 2002)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Myung Film Company Ltd.

Technical Specs

Runtime:

90 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

User Reviews

Bizarre and disturbing movie

A mentally retarded young woman is living near a remote small lake. She makes her living by supplying useful goods, fishing tools and prostitutes to the fishermen and sometimes sleeps with them for money. The fishermen are living in very small cabins floating on the lake. One day, she falls in love with one of them. Besides this, one of the call-girls becomes attracted to him and visits him in her spare time. But he has a dark past and came to this remote place to commit suicide. After an unsuccessful try involving fishing hooks (!), he is saved by the retarded girl, who became jealousy of the call-girl and then kills her by accident...

Here we have another strange Asian movie that somehow plays like an arthouse horror film. Director Ki-Duk Kim wanted to make a metaphorical movie about isles and love ("a woman's isle is a man, a man's isle is a woman"). He creates a mysterious and fascinating, but at the same time disturbing atmosphere in this movie about poor people living in their own world like on... an isle far away from modern civilization. On the other side, undefendable shots of gruesome violence against animals and some almost unwatchable scenes involving fishing hooks make for a hard experience to sit through, and plot-wise too just not everything made sense in the intended way to me. Bizarre and very different from "common" horror movies, I'd still recommend "The Isle" to everyone interested in Asian cinema.