Poongsan

I started to watch this movie after searching "Kim Ki Duk" on YouTube. I thought first that he was the director and found out only after finishing to see it that Kim Ki Duk had only written the script, otherwise this would have been just a major disappointment. Apparently Kim Ki Duk, who produced it, Juhn Jai-hong, the director, wanted to make a pop-corn movie for less than 200,000 dollars. And if this was the goal, they have succeeded in that, as this is just a typical movie with a lot of shootings and unrealistic scenes a bit like in Rambo, or in a Bruce Lee movie. Only 3-4 times one recognizes the "touch" of Kim Ki Duk in the script, however if the story was potentially interesting, and provoking for somebody like me who lives in Korea, one just feels that it was too much like a B-movie, that the director lacks experience, and probably also a decent budget. Also in many Kim Ki Duk movies, like "Dream", for example, there are unrealistic parts in the script, but the movie is always so well done, the photography is so great that it compensate for all the rest. Here it is not so and I believe that cutting 30 minutes or so would have saved me some moments of absolute boringness in the mid of the movie. Overall I gave 5 star as an encouragement for the young director for producing it in such a short time, some good ideas and for some panoramas of Korea that I always like to watch.