Plastic Tree

I honestly had no idea what I was getting myself into when I purchased this film a few months ago. Like similar DVDs that I purchase on a whim, this one sat upon my bookshelf gathering dust while the cellophane of a number of other DVDs was ripped off and their contents either bringing me enjoyment or disappointment. I really wish that I had torn the cellophane off of this DVD before I had several others. This is a great film that will both make you feel extraordinarily sympathetic and jump in horror at the same time.

At the beginning of the film the viewer is introduced to Won Young a spacey young woman with extraordinarily long hair who lives with her boyfriend Su who is a barber and who owns his own shop which also serves as the young couple's home. They live a simple life with little luxury, but their relationship seems to be warm enough.

Their humdrum lives, however, are soon disturbed when Byong Ho arrives. Byong Ho has just finished his obligatory military service, and having nowhere else to go, decides to stay at Su's home. Su is not pleased with this, but he allows Byong Ho, who he has known since childhood, to stay at his home because Byong Ho states that he will soon be leaving on a ship to work.

Won Young soon becomes fascinated with Byong Ho because he promises to plant her trees on top of the barbershop and take her sailing. Simple requests, or not so simple ones, that Su had always shrugged off. It is obvious from the start that Byong Ho is trying to wedge his way into Su and Won Young's relationship which he does with little care for the damage that he causes.

This is a sad film. Su is impotent so sex between himself and Won Young is limited to the oral variety, which is depicted in graphic detail. Byong Ho takes advantage of this fact and rapes Won Young who, instead of telling Su, some how begins to derive feelings for her rapist and they begin to have numerous liaisons.

Although the viewer does feel sympathy for Su, the character I truly feel for is Won Young. Won Young is a delivery girl who not only has to put up with rude customers, but who also has to suffer the torments of her fellow workers who either yell at hr for being slow or simply ridicule her and continuously call her "bitch."

This a definitely a good film, but its content matter and pure cruelty makes it hard for me to call it a favorite, but it will stay with you for a long time.

Hard to describe the fascination of that movie: Surreal theater-like elements of narration on the on hand and pure naturalism played by brilliant actors - just to get a picture. Dogma from von Trier, Vinterberg etc. produces a feeling of pure reality, which is one by one destructed by people, who failed trying to reconstruct their world. They are helpless, but the films are not depressiv. I don´t know why. There´s a strange energy in them. Plastic tree shares that effect whith the Dogma-products, but in a second dimension it offers a lot of fantastic symbols, macro in micro, and instrumentalize the colors to explain relationships. A great film from Korea, hope I will see it in Germany soon. (I saw it at Filmfest Heidelberg-Mannheim, it won the award of the jury.)