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Cherry Crush (2007)
Travel through trippy trash.
First, to address a few good things with Cherry Crush. It's not all that long. It's not all that boring (on a scale from 1-100 about a 20). And well, the camera work shows a little promise. But Cherry Crush is an experience in grotesque and stupid mind of an obviously deranged teenage wannabe director, that used this movie to launder some money or just has rich relatives or a LOT of connections.
Cherry Crush doesn't even try to hide the blatant idiocy that envelopes the very essence. It's almost a parody of noirish clichés and trippy haunting atmosphere. The plot is almost non existent (boy takes pictures of teenage girls, boy gets transfered to another school by his rich daddy, boy meets schizo girl, boy fcks schizo girl, schizo girl involves him in a giant scam involving murder, lots of money and other stuff, the end). Oops I'm sorry I meant to say ORIGINAL plot is almost non existent, there's a lot of recycling and flamboyant flashing of semi famous main leads.
I'll just address one thing more, because the movie really doesn't deserve anymore. The photography and directing was crappy. Really crappy. It actually looked like a five year old, who just watched Night of the Hunter shot the entire movie with his dad's camcorder getting some help with the screenplay from the neighborly six year old, that wrote that GREAT short story about that dog with spots.
Idiotic and appalling all in one. Why the 3 then? Dunno really. It wasn't that boring. And I actually laughed a few times when the intellectual babble started.
Seom (2000)
Kim Ki-duk at his best
I am a big fan of Kim Ki-duk, ever since I watched Spring, summer... After that one, I just couldn't get enough. And now after 3-iron, Samaria, Address Unknown and finally The Isle, I can safely say, that the man is a genius.
The Isle is essentially, a story about two people. People that eventually fall in love and people that are both semi disturbed. The male protagonist is clearly hunted by the police, and the female (the caretaker of 'islands') is pretending that is mute, when many scenes in the movie indicate that she really is not. Now what makes The Isle special. It's the gritting harsh undertones that mellow down to nice loving drama. The contrast between extreme torture and love and empathy is just too great. Anyone that watched Ki-duk's movies before, knows that all share a common theme. Motto 'If you do something it will come back after you' is ever present in his movies. You cannot run away from any act you do. As in most of his movies, dialogs play a REALLY small part in this one. The whole movie contains maybe 40 sentences all in all. And the female protagonist never speaks.
Now all the warnings about extreme torture and 'it's too much for all to handle' are all just. The Isle sometimes just SCREAMS, as a piece itself. You feel the pain, the sadness the longing in each and every character, and sometimes the punishment they receive is just too much. But. The Isle is a movie that will not leave you untouched.
The Isle is a jewel of modern Asian cinema, for me almost the best. Maybe just a tad behind Kikujiro and The Dolls of Kitano, and before many others.