3-Iron

The lonely and silent rider Tae-suk (Hee Jae) breaks in empty houses and lives a normal life while the owners are traveling. He does not steal anything and moves from house to house without any loss other than food, and he cleans the houses, provides small repairs or washes some clothes to retribute the hospitality.

When he enters in the house of Sun-hwa (Seung-yeon Lee), he does not see the woman that is wounded in her room after being beaten up on by her abusive husband Min-gyu Lee (Hyuk-ho Kwon). Tae-suk helps the hurt woman and when Min-gyu returns, he hits the husband with golf balls and Sun-hwa leaves her husband with Tae-suk in his motorcycle.

When they break in the house of an old man, they find that the man is dead and Tae-suk provides funeral service for him. However, his son returns and Tae-suk and Sun-hwa are arrested by two abusive police detectives. He is sent to prison and Sun-hwa is forced to return home. But she never forgets him.

"Bin-jip" is a subtle film about a lonely drifter and an abused wife that finds love, empathy and human warmth with him. The story is open to interpretation and here is mine (it is a spoiler – therefore if you have not watched the film yet, do not read):

Tae-suk is murdered by the prison guards when he leaves his cell, and Min-gyu Lee receives a phone call from the police telling that the youngster had been released as a sort of justification for his disappearance. Sun-hwa lives with the "ghost" of the free-spirited Tae-suk as a way to help her to survive to his marriage life.

Maybe I am too simplistic, but that is the way that I have understood this pleasant film. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Casa Vazia" ("Empty House")

It's hard to mark this movie because it's hard to put it into a category. It is romance, social satire and drama in the same time. This guy breaks into houses and lives inside them like they were his own, while the owners are gone, without actually stealing anything. I don't want to spoil the ending, but I think this is the main pillar of the movie, the idea that one can succeed on living in the world, but out of sight. This is a movie for the true pariah, the one that wants to be left alone, in silence, in his own world.

It is said that the best warrior wins the battles without fighting. If that's true, then Kim Ki-Duk is amongst the best dialog writers ever :) The characters say nothing, but tell a lot.

I think it is a movie worth watching, it's quiet and has some original ideas that can catch your imagination if in the right mood.

To me it's been obvious for quite some time now that South Korea is by far the most interesting country in Asia when it comes to film. And Asia on the other hand feels like the most interesting continent, so where does that leave us?

"Bin-Jip" (or "3-iron") is a wonderful movie. I went to see it without really knowing what to expect. I must admit that even though South Korean films appeal to me my expectations were quite low, not least because the movie was described in a way that was vague to say the least. But after watching it... it all made sense. Because how do you describe a movie like this one? It moves somewhere in the shadow-land between reality and fantasy. One of those movies that has very little plot to it but still comes across as beautifully written. And above all things it made me feel good!

The closest reference i can find to how this movie made me feel is "Lost in Translation". Don't get me wrong, the movies are not very alike. But the feeling they gave me is the same. When i watched these movies for the first time i felt like i didn't really know what i was i just saw. I only knew that i liked it and it made me feel good. A warm sensation in my gut telling me that maybe there is hope after all. Hope for what? I don't know, life maybe?

In the end the 3-iron, the golf-balls and the surface are not important. What's important is life, love and warmth. This is a beautiful movie, both on the surface and beneath it. It is also a truly unique movie experience and i don't get to say that very often. Highly recommended and definitely one of the best i've seen so far this year.

9/10

Ki-duk Kim has written and directed an outstanding film about a homeless, but creative individual who breaks into houses for a place to eat, sleep, and clean himself up. While there, he fixes anything that is broken, does the laundry, and makes sure he cleans up after himself.

He breaks into a house that he thinks is empty and finds an abused woman. What transpires is one of the most tender and beautiful films I have ever seen. I would not spoil it by revealing any of the plot as this is one you definitely have to see.

If Ki-duk Kim can write a love story this incredible, I certainly want to see his action films.

I must say that in general I am quite skeptical about Asian movies: I usually find them horrendously boring in the best case, and obnoxiously weird in the worst. In particular the last one, 2046, kept me agonizing in the theater while unconnected images -even though wheel shot and poetical- ran through the screen, so I was pretty scared when I entered the theater this time. Especially after a friend of mine told me it was a dramatic/romantic movie with almost no dialogs. Instead, i was surprised by how charming, touching and pleasant is this movie. The plot is about a guy who enters in empty houses and puts them in order, repairs things, does the washing (manually) and stuff like this. The photography is absolutely awesome and added to the skill of the actors supplies to the almost complete absence of dialogs. We assist to this platonic form of platonic love between the protagonists, while they live their absurd lives as they were the most normal people in the world. The end is a bit mystical and gives a lot of meaning to a movie that could seem nonsense. 9/10