Honestly, I don't think this is nearly as good as some of Kim Ki-Duk's other films. I haven't seen them all, but certainly this didn't impress me as much as "The Isle" or "Samaritan Girl" did. Not that it's a bad film at all, but I think it reveals Kim Ki-Duk as a limited filmmaker at least. The dreamlike, unreal aspects have always been apparent in his films, but here they stretch the limits of credibility to the point of emotional disengagement. Sometimes the film threatens to become so diffuse and otherworldly that it simply floats off into the ether. Also, it becomes more noticeable than ever what an unremarkable visual stylist Kim Ki-Duk is. Surely he is still one of the most interesting filmmakers working today, but compared to his contemporaries like Wong Kar-Wai and Tsai Ming-Liang he is sometimes sloppy and in general less accomplished or imaginative. To call the film slow or minimalistic would be missing the point (although, to the film's credit, I didn't notice that there were only two lines of dialogue in the whole film), but I did find at times that the plot seemed like a limp melodrama spiced up with a huge portion of obtuse, self-consciously artful technique. Not that the film isn't truly artful, but it doesn't help things to realize that the central motif of the film (the lead character breaking into unoccupied houses) so closely resembles Tsai Ming Liang's "Vive L'Amour". At least the film isn't, for once, hampered by sub-par music, as has been the case with some of Kim Ki-Duk's work in the past. All and all it is a good film, although not the one of Kim Ki-Duk's that I find the most inspiring. I will certainly continue to watch more of his films though, as I think he is one of contemporary cinema's most elusive, subtlest masters.
Review of 3-Iron
