The Isle
2000
The eerily beautiful photography and melodic musical score of THE ISLE stand in odd contrast to the brutal horror story it tells. On the serene surface of a secluded bay float a series of candy-coloured fishing houses, rented to men who seek an escape. The owner and operator of the village is a mute woman with a row boat who .. Read more
| Starring | Jung Suh, Yoo-Seok Kim, Sung-Hee Park |
|---|---|
| Director | Kim Ki-Duk, Ki-Duk Kim |
| Genres | Drama, World Cinema |
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The Isle
The eerily beautiful photography and melodic musical score of THE ISLE stand in odd contrast to the brutal horror story it tells. On the serene surface of a secluded bay float a series of candy-coloured fishing houses, rented to men who seek an escape. The owner and operator of the village is a mute woman with a row boat who delivers her guests to their floating rooms, and sells them bait, food, coffee, prostitutes, and occasionally her own body. The men mistreat her, and her wounded spirit haunts the lake. At first subtle and secretive, but increasingly more bold and direct, the mute woman enacts unexpected violence upon the men. For example, when one client is leaning out over the dock to defecate into the lake, she swims up behind him, pulls him under the water, and stabs him. The blurred, partially submerged camerawork suggests that the woman is disembodied while committing these acts, as if unrealised hatred is surfacing within her to inspire her actions. Real trouble arrives in the form of a man who is hiding out from the law. He rents the yellow fishing house closest to shore and contemplates suicide. A sadomasochistic chemistry develops between this unhappy man and the mute woman and their relationship facilitates a series of extremely violent sex and mutilation scenes which ultimately bring THE ISLE to its disturbing conclusion.
| Starring | Jung Suh, Yoo-Seok Kim, Sung-Hee Park |
|---|---|
| Director | Kim Ki-Duk, Ki-Duk Kim |
| Studio | PALISADES TARTAN |
| Run time | DVD: 1 hr 27 mins |
| Certificate | |
| Genres | Drama, World Cinema |
| Language | DVD: Korean |
| Subtitles | DVD: English |
| Released | DVD: 23 May 2005 Production year: 2000 |
| Format | DVD |
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Critics' reviews (2)
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Opening with a scene of lyrical tranquility, as a gaggle of brightly coloured fishing shacks bob on a glassy lake, Kim Ki-Duk's fourth feature imperceptibly slides into a mêlée of pitiless cruelty and obsessive slaughter. Recalling such Japanese chillers as Woman of the Dunes and Onibaba in its latent sense of menace, the hesitant relationship between mute resort attendant Hee-Jin (Suh Jung) and the suicidal Hyun-Shik (Kim Yu-Seok) promises much. But the remorseless sadism and use of shock tactics — including scenes in which the two characters ingest or penetrate themselves with fish hooks — have the effect of dulling any real insight into the human condition that this otherwise visually ravishing drama might have had.
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Women! Can't live with 'em, can't live without 'em! Notorious for causing viewers to scream, vomit and pass out at... read more on Time Out
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Most helpful member's review
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11 out of 13 people found this review helpful
Twisted Love
'The Isle' is a wonderfully shot, atmospheric and almost gleefully perverse (and not a little gruesome) tale of love and lust and... well, brutal murder, really. When you consider the tosh that Hollywood is spewing out under the 'horror' banner of late, it's so refreshing to find a film that's happy to ease along at its own pace, and allow the viewer to get carried along with the (sometimes horrifying) ride. 'The Isle' is just such a film: some of the imagery is so hauntingly beautiful you can't stop looking... and some of the scenes so horrific you have to look away. Essentially, this is the tale of a lonely, suicide-prone man who takes to the titular Isle in a fishing hut to kill himself - and finds salvation in the stunning yet mute girl who runs the place (and has a little sideline in whoring herself then murdering her punters). There's little in the way of dialogue, but who needs it when the locale, the music, the action and the slightest change in expression says so many words? This ain't easy stuff - who said Asian horror ever was? - but it's a league above the American rubbish we're force-fed every month.
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Most recent members' review
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2 out of 3 people found this review helpful
WHAT IN THE NAME OF JUPITER'S BALLS IS THIS!!!!!!!
What a complete load of twisted, uninteresting crap. I thought this was a horror film or at least a 'thinking' film.....more like a 'sit back and die' film.
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News and features
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Danes brushes off ghost stories
- 20 Nov 2009
Claire Danes has laughed off rumours the set of Me And Orson Welles was haunted, insisting she wouldn't have been able to act if she'd spotted a ghost. Tabloid reports suggested Danes and co-star Zac Efron were left spooked after they came face-to-face with a spirit in the historic Gaiety Theatre on the Isle of Man, where they were filming the period drama last year (08). But Danes is relieved to report the stories aren't true - because she's terrified of supernatural beings. She says, "I'm... Read more
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