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Watching Dragon, Hidden Growler  

INDEX

Many Chinese and East Asian films are very successful due to their fantastic creativity and innovation.

Here are a selection that deserve your attention.

This article was also featured in Chinatown - The Magazine.

Rawle Austin presents...

The Isle - "A tragic journey into the furthest recesses of the human mind".

The Isle (or Seom) is written and directed by Kim Ki-Duk who is renowned within Korean cinema.

He is part of the vanguard of progressive directors of international, independent cinema.

It stars, up and coming Korean actress Suh Jung and actor Kim Yoo-Suk.

Director’s quote “ In The Isle I wanted to depict extreme feelings that are hard to realize through image and actions, the extreme psychology of men, women and love.

The Isle is a place that we all desire, yet retreat from as soon as we become familiar with it.”

Set on and around a river in a South Korean fishing holiday retreat, the stunning picturesque natural surroundings and brightly coloured floating chalets totally belie the seedy nature of this fishing community.

 

The director takes us on a gentle tour of the area and characters before dragging us helplessly to one graphically intense scene to the next.

This film is definitely not for the squeamish and certain scenes will have you turn away in their disturbing brutality but they serve to open up the characters emotions and you gain an intimate insight to them.

Our senses are assaulted regularly but this is interspersed with shots of the fantastically beautiful lush green hills, floating reeds and misty fog which seems to float on the river like a blanket.

The sight of all this natural beauty has a soothing and calming effect to counteract and balance out the character intensities.

Focusing on the groundkeeper of the retreat, Hee-Jin (Suh Jung) is seen as curious and reclusive who travels to each chalet by speedboat.

She is a proud woman who although offering herself as an extra “service” to customers she maintains a sense of fierce dignity and control.

We are then introduced to the second main lead, Hyun-Shik (Kim Yoo-Suk), an ex-cop.

He is seen as sensitive and creative but hiding a dark secret, which is slowly eating away at his conscience.

Bringing him to the depths of despair and suicide.

 

One such attempt brings him into contact with the ground keeper and the two embark on an ultimately self destructive path.

These actions punctuate the narrative and serve to further reveal the heights and desperate depths to which their characters both soar and plummet.

An act of jealousy ends in disaster and leads to a series of events, which unfortunately have tragic results for both characters.

Spoken throughout in the Korean language, with English subtitles, this is a gripping, disturbing and compelling story, which will have you enthralled from start to finish.

Running time: 89mins, Certificate: 18

 

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon - A Review>

Check out Dianying.com for an extensive database of Chinese films.

 

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