The Isle (2000)

A Carer becomes the mother to a secluded isle.

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-Hyun Cho	...	Mang-Chee (as Jae-hyeon Jo)
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 | police | mute | fish | 

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Genres:

Drama | Thriller

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Certificate:

Not Rated

Details

Country:

South Korea

Language:

Korean

Release Date:

22 April 2000 (South Korea)

Also Known As:

La isla

Filming Locations:

South Korea

Box Office

Budget:

$1,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend USA:

$4,546, 25 August 2002

Gross USA:

$20,666

Cumulative Worldwide Gross:

$24,963

Company Credits

Production Co:

Myung Film Company Ltd.

Technical Specs

Runtime:

90 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Alternate Versions

The cut UK print was submitted to the Irish censor who cited the violence as causing concern - he gave the distributor (Tartan Films) two options:

• Resubmit the same version (presumably for an appeal/reconsideration)
• Submit an altered version to secure a certificate

They went with the latter, despite the changes not being required under law - this censored version was certified 18 on September 29, 2004. The cuts totaled 3m 15s on top of the UK's 1m 50s to animal cruelty - the running time of the Irish print is 84m 53s compared to the UK's 88m 8s. No details for the cuts or justification for the decision were made available. An article in the Irish Times issue dated October 1, 2004 explains it in further detail: "The Isle was due to open at UGC Cinemas in Dublin on September 10th as part of the touring Asia Extreme season organised by the London-based distributors, Tartan Films. On that date, showings of the South Korean film were listed in all the daily UGC advertisements, and a display ad for the film was run in The Ticket, as was Donald Clarke's review. But the film never opened and has yet to receive a public screening in Ireland. The Isle was submitted to the censor's office on September 8th, just two days before it was due to be released - very late notice at an exceptionally busy period for new releases. John Kelleher, the film censor, made time to view it the next day, but found that some elements of the film required serious consideration. "We contacted Tartan and drew attention to scenes of sexual violence and explicit self-mutilation that were causing us concern," he says. "It was entirely up to Tartan Films if they wanted to resubmit the same version of the film, or a different version." Tartan subsequently submitted an altered version of the film, which was viewed by Kelleher on Wednesday morning and passed with an 18 certificate. The film had already been cut by 110 seconds by the British Board of Film Classification because of a scene of animal cruelty. In his three-star review, Donald Clarke noted "the notorious scene in which the female lead, part avenging angel, part lady of the lake, inserts fishhooks into her vagina and then, as if that were not uncomfortable enough, hauls them out again". He also noted that in the film's "envelope-pushing shock therapy, the hero does something similar to his esophagus." The Isle will probably open at the end of the Asia Extreme season, on November 5th."

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Connections

Referenced in Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring (2003)

User Reviews

Fishermen's worst beautiful nightmare - and everyone else's, too

Seom aka The Isle is written and directed by Korean film maker Ki-duk Kim. This bizarre film tells about happenings in strange fishing resort in which fishermen live and fish in floating cabins at daytime, and have fun and sex with local prostitutes at night time. The film's protagonist is an attractive, but very mysterious female (Suh Jung) who never talks, and works as some kind of "boat girl" who gets the food and prostitutes for the fishermen and other similar activities with her little boat. There is minimal amount of dialogue in The Isle, and it is hard to describe this ultra bizarre film after just one viewing.

The visuals are very astonishing and stunning as the settings are so atmospheric and natural. The calm mist and smoke above the water is very moody and even surreal, and this all is intensified even further by great use of camera, occasionally very weird angles and total feel of peace and magic. Blue is the main color in the film, and it is equally brilliant-looking as in many Hong Kong thrillers like Dr. Lamb by Danny Lee and Red to Kill by Billy Tang. The colors are always fantastic in Asian films, and The Isle once again proves and shows this. This film is a delight to the eye..at least before the infamous scenes involving fishing hooks.

The director has said that he wanted to depict relationships between men and women with this film, and that the film tells something about how dependent were are on each other, and especially on another sex. Once the first horrific "hook scene" comes, the only cure for his pain is the main female, who by giving him carnal pleasure, takes away or diminishes his pain - and vice versa later in the film. I think that this film is more feminist since the very surreal closing scene is so underlining as the man finally finds the "truth" and source of all life. Another reviewer thought that the end scene is gratuitous and only there to confuse things even further, and that may be the case, but still I want to interpret it as above, and it is very personal scene in depicting that eternal truth. Seeing is believing...

I think there's lot more than just this in the core of The Isle. The film really tells something about the relationship between humans and nature and nature's sources. There are many scenes depicting man exploiting nature and its inhabitants, and I think that the forthcoming scenes of mutilation are also symbolic as things turn upside down: humans become the victims of what they have practised and see the results. At this point, it is necessary to stress that there are many scenes of actual killing and off putting abuse of animals (mainly fish) which I, also, think are gratuitous since the message of the film is pretty hard to take since the film does the same exploitations it depicts committed by its characters. Then again, the killings show the real face of our world, since in order to stay alive, we have to use nature's resources and there's nothing wrong in that. So what's wrong in my opinion is that the animals in The Isle are not killed without pain and suffering, and that is not right nor human since I think that no living creature should die painfully or tortured. I wanted to think that the animals were not mutilated and killed in the film for real, but it all looks sadly too real. Still, I have to find the film's merits even though it becomes far more difficult when I remember these "animal snuff" scenes, that are unnecessarily explicit, albeit meant to be symbolic, which they of course are, if one can still accept this after the horrific imagery.

This film reminded me pretty much of Japanese film Naked Blood, which also is very beautiful and surreal film, but soon the horrific scenes of self mutilation and ultra splatter are on screen before the viewer's eyes. The self mutilations committed by fish hooks in The Isle are very gruelling to say the least, so this film will make the weakest viewers faint, as many festival screenings have proven. They are so sickeningly effective I wanted to stop thinking about what it would feel like to actually do something like that. Fish hooks are very small, but like Stuart Gordon has said (about the finger biting moment in Re-Animator), the smallest things may be the most horrific in many cases. These fish hooks really are symbolic as the humans are "turned to fishes" and get to see what they've done and created.

The Isle is very weird, bizarre, calm and also disturbing piece of cinema, and only minority of cinema lovers will stomach and appreciate films like The Isle. As I stressed earlier, I am sorry about the fact of animal mutilation presented in the film, and without those scenes, I would probably give more stars in the rating. Now it gets little less even if I wanted to give it more as a piece of art. 8/10 and to understand more about this film, it has to be seen many times since it unfolds pretty slowly.