Review of The Isle (2000) by Lee ? — 10 Nov 2011

Kim Ki-duk serves up another dark and twisted love-story themed film set on a fishing lake where a mute woman and a man with a troubled past find attraction with eachother. The movie is very picturesque and beautiful to look at at times, then we have some rather unpleasant scenes that add the disturbing quality to it all.

There's a couple of very nasty moments of self-harm involving fish hooks and moments of animal cruelty - fish mutilated, a drowning finch, a dog takes a beating and a frog gets ripped apart. I wouldn't really describe this as an erotic film at all, yes there are sex scenes but they are not romantic and the majority of them are done fully clothed without any titilation.

The acting was very good all round, especially by the mute woman, a little bit more background on the male character would have been nice though. But I was really hooked from the start with this one despite the slowness of it all and the very little dialogue.

I enjoyed it more than "Bad Guy".