Bad Guy
by Kim Ki-Duk
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: CHO Je-Hyun, CHOI Duk-Moon, CHOI Yoon-Young, KIM Yoon-Tae, SEO WonDirector: Kim Ki-Duk
Brand: Koch International
Writer: Kim Ki-Duk
DVD: Region Code 0
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Subtitled); Korean (Original Language)
Format: NTSC
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 100 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2011-12-07
Audience Rating: Unrated
Studio: Vanguard Cinema
Product features:
- A harrowing portrait of love and desire, BAD GUY is situated deep in Seoul's seedy nightlife. Differing strains of the story follow various people inexorably caught up in an underground existence that exercises a vice-like grip over their every action; a pimp forces a prostitute to live in her booth, then falls in love with her by watching her activities behind a two-way mirror; a murderer see
Movie Reviews of Bad Guy
Movie Review: A Brutal Cinematic Tapestry Where Borders Dissolve...
Summary: 5 Stars
Ki-duk Kim delivers an inquisitive blow to the audience with his film titled Bad Guy. Here he intends to make the audience question whether humans can get along despite differences in class, education, appearance, and other social standards that the society creates. On the surface these differences might not be what the viewer discovers, but in retrospect, or maybe even during the film, the notion of harmony among human differences might emerge in consciousness. Nonetheless, Ki-duk Kim paints a cinematic tapestry of brutality and hatred that strikes deep into the soul and core of humanity.
Bad Guy is not unlike Ki-duk Kim's other films in regards to the symbolism and the artistic expression that this South Korean director strives to visualize on the silver screen. Yet, the situation is new and the story is unique even though he returned to teenage prostitution in Samaria (2004), the English title Samaria Girl. The depicted cruelty often finds its place in Ki-duk Kim's films, may be even a reason for his popularity. However, it is in the moment of viciousness where he generates the artistic moment that crosses between what is acceptable and unacceptable. These are moments where opposite sides cross into each other's sphere like a bridge built for a moment that is destroyed in the next instant. The violence can be seen in films such as the Isle (2000) where a woman pulls up a man by a fish hook and the dog killings in Address Unknown (2001). It is in these violent moments where Ki-duk Kim reaches the furthest while trying to communicate his message to the audience.
Cleverly, Ki-duk Kim opens Bad Guy with a scene of a city street where hundreds of of people are wandering during business hour. People are shown from all walks of life, ugly and pretty, rich and poor, and among them emerges the silent anti-hero of the story Han-gi (Jae-hyeon Jo) who discovers Sun-hwa (Won Seo). They are from opposite social classes. Han-gi comes from the lower class while Sun-hwa is a member of the upper class. Han-gi is a quiet, perhaps of his servitude class, pimp from the part of the town nobody admits they are from, or want to visit unless it is for carnal pleasure. Sun-hwa is the pretty college girl most men would turn their head to look at twice who is both refined and educated.
When Han-gi's eyes lands on Sun-hwa for the first time he cannot take them of her, as she sits on a park bench. He stands there dumbfounded almost drooling all over himself while observing her from a distance. Awkwardly, he approaches her and is unable to speak he sits down next to her. Sun-hwa steps away seemingly threatened by his stare and presence, and possibly his looks. After all he has a thick and long scar running horizontally over his throat. When her boyfriend arrives Han-gi continues to stare at her. All of a sudden Han-gi walks up and kisses her right in front of the boyfriend who helplessly tries to remove him. Consequently, the situation escalates when Sun-hwa demands an apology for Han-gi's transgression, which ends with him getting a severe beating from a large number of bystanders.
Like a ghost Han-gi returns to his home in the poor community where girls sell themselves for a few meager bucks while bribing off nosy police officers with their only assets. Angry and vindictive Han-gi intends to repay the mistreatment in a Machiavellian style where he concocts a trap where Sun-hwa gets into big debt. Unable to pay off the debt she ends up becoming a slave-like prostitute where she must pay with her body and face. Silently, Han-gi continues to watch her through a one-way mirror while she begins and continues her new life as a prostitute. This of course has strong symbolic value in regards to the transparency of the lower class's view of the upper class while the narcissism of the rich blinds them from seeing the poor.
Ki-duk Kim's presentation of the theme is a very uncomfortable cinematic experience, yet he succeeds through this tragedy to make people think about the differences between Han-gi and Sun-hwa. In addition, to strengthen his message he experiments with distance between the characters through both tangible and intangible symbols throughout the whole film. In essence, the story turns into a macabre education of class struggle and differences between people where Ki-duk Kim does not hold back in his social criticism. The film is both bizarre and surreal while also humane underneath all the ugliness, as Ki-duk Kim displays his brilliant ability to create visual fabrications from his personal artistic vision that will continue to mesmerize many for a long time.
Summary of Bad Guy
When a local pimp is publicly humiliated by a snobbish college girl, he manipulates her into a life of sexual slavery at his brothel, where he gradually falls in love with her. Kim Ki-Duk, the award-winning director of THE ISLE and SPRING, SUMMER, FALL, WINTER... and SPRING, has created a lurid fable of obsessive love, using a potent mix of dark romance, surrealist technique, and violent action.This product is manufactured on demand using DVD-R recordable media. Amazon.com's standard return policy will apply.Similar DVD Movies
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