The Net

This new film by Ki-Duk Kim, one of the most renowned director/writer in Korea, deals an old motif of divided nations again (after "The Coast Guard" in 2002). As the title implies, Kim sees the South-North division as a big net. A fisherman (Chul-Woo Nam by Seung-Bum Ryoo) was caught in the net, by a probable series of accidents. In both South and North, Chul-Woo is suspected as a spy by bureaucratic or corrupted investigators. One believes in freedom, the other in anti-capitalism. But it soon turns out that they are only the weft and warp of the same big net, from which Chul-Woo is so desperate to escape. The real tragedy of this net lies in that even the kindness inevitably takes part in it, for Chul-Woo whose only ambition is to keep and meet his family. Chul-Woo is a stunning symbol of a way broader types of "net" and "fishes", the political and social distortions in the North and in the South as well. Ryoo's acting was superb. Not very easy a movie to see as other Kim's movies (at least less graphic, though), but another great visualization/symbolization as other Kim's works.