Rating: 
Summary: The Isle
Review: A film likely not for everyone, but a pretty good one regardless. There's little dialogue and lots of imagery. The film moves at a very steady pace, but at a very subtle one at that. Both lead characters are a bit disturbed and in perturbing situations in their lives: one suicidal, and the other just meandering mundanely through her job(s) on the isle. The setting and struggles are more of what this film focuses on, as we never really learn a whole lot about the characters (not even their names), except maybe for the fact that they have a thing for painful suicide attempts. Nonetheless, it's a good film: you'll likely either love it (like I did), or despise it:).
Rating:
Summary: noteworthy art or pretentious trash?
Review: Critics seem to be divided on this film, either praising it to the skies or denouncing it as arty garbage. I think the dilemma lies in the difference between the story and how it is presented. The film, while beautifully shot and absolutely wonderful to watch (the director was trained as a painter), is totally at odds with the sordid storyline, which deals with the relationship between an apparently mute prostitute and a suicidal cop who may have killed his wife and her lover. It's like a James M. Cain novel filmed by Peter Greenaway. I think for the most part it succeeds, though I have docked it a star for occasional lapses of taste (scenes of people defecating, for example).VIEWER ALERT: There are two scenes involving fish hooks that, while not graphic, are very tough to take. Reportedly, they have caused strong reactions among theater audiences-- screaming, fainting, vomiting, and fleeing from the theaters. One critic said he ran out of the theater and blacked out in the lobby! You have been warned!
Rating:
Summary: noteworthy art or pretentious trash?
Review: Critics seem to be divided on this film, either praising it to the skies or denouncing it as arty garbage. I think the dilemma lies in the difference between the story and how it is presented. The film, while beautifully shot and absolutely wonderful to watch (the director was trained as a painter), is totally at odds with the sordid storyline, which deals with the relationship between an apparently mute prostitute and a suicidal cop who may have killed his wife and her lover. It's like a James M. Cain novel filmed by Peter Greenaway. I think for the most part it succeeds, though I have docked it a star for occasional lapses of taste (scenes of people defecating, for example). VIEWER ALERT: There are two scenes involving fish hooks that, while not graphic, are very tough to take. Reportedly, they have caused strong reactions among theater audiences-- screaming, fainting, vomiting, and fleeing from the theaters. One critic said he ran out of the theater and blacked out in the lobby! You have been warned!
Rating: 
Summary: Surreal Korean Film
Review: Gruesome, surreal, and gorgeous. All of these words perfectly describe the Korean film "The Isle." This film features amazingly beautiful scenery and imagery which is painful to watch. A man with a disturbing past seeks sanctuary from the law, and his own demons. He comes to a lake where a woman delivers fishermen and other visitors to small, floating rooms, accessable only by boat. She brings them supplies and prostitutes, and even sells herself to her visitors. She performs all of these duties without a word. When she and her reclusive boarder become entangled in a very disturbing love affair, sex, murder, suicide attempts, and mutilation follow. This film is not to be undertaken by the light-of-heart. The film's director is known for depicting inhuman brutality and horrors on screen, and is known to be quite a sick fellow in general. He's also known to be a talented film-maker, by those who can sit through his films without becoming ill. This is an excellent film, but not one for the squemish. If you think you can sit through the film's more disturbing scenes, then you're in for a very disturbing treat.
Rating: 
Summary: Beautiful and greusome at the same time
Review: If you only see one existentialist art house horror porn film this year, then you must see The Isle. The Isle is a Korean film about a disturbed woman that services small fishing floats. By service, I mean she brings the men coffee, has sex with them occasionally, and stabs them with a screwdriver if she doesn't like them. The Isle is one part "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" and one part "I Spit On Your Grave." Sort of a cerebral feminist slasher flick. Too gross to appeal to mainstream audiences and too slow to appeal to suspense fans, I am not sure who this film was made for. On another topic, who wants to fish in a lake where there are no bathrooms? Remind me not to eat sushi in Korea.
Rating: 
Summary: Proceed with caution...
Review: SOME SPOILERS This beautifully shot film centers on a small fishing facility, it's owner and a fisherman--both characters are very disturbed and by the conclusion have bonded in an unusual, altogether unpleasant way. There is very little dialogue and the acting, especially by the leads, is quite good. More disturbing than the heralded swallowing of fishhooks sequence is the actual violence enacted towards live fish. Was it necessary? Not really.
Rating:
Summary: close your eyes
Review: subtitled...contains imagery from like crouching tiger...beautiful film..though be warned of the part when the guy swallows the fishing hooks...
Rating:
Summary: Haunting
Review: Thanks to the recent boom in Asian horror films and their American remakes, specifically films like "The Ring" and "The Grudge," we are starting to see movies from other countries in that region. Exhibit A is the South Korean film "The Isle." Before watching this film I didn't even think South Korea made films let alone distributed them beyond their borders. The words "South Korea" conjure up memories of "M*A*S*H*" and the Korean War, the demilitarized zone and Kim Jong-Il. What those words do not bring to mind is cinema. But here's a movie, and a pretty disturbing one at that, which easily compares with the grotesqueries coming out of Japan and Hong Kong. Compares, that is, not in a particularly gory way but in the emotionally and psychologically devastating way one usually sees in a Takashi Miike picture. In fact, I began mentally comparing "The Isle" with Miike's "Visitor Q" and "Audition" due to what I saw as a similarity in themes dealing with the inability of people to connect with one another in healthy ways. What the heck is going on over in Asia that gives birth to film after film loaded with alienation and damaged human beings?
"The Isle" wallows in enigmatic symbolism and bleak images. The entire picture revolves around an isolated lake up in the mountains where people go to fish. A very attractive mute young lady, Hee-Jin (Jung Suh), works as the caretaker of the lake, a job that entails renting little colored floating cabins to guests and supplying said cabins with whatever the visitors need. In some cases, the men on these little getaways require quite a bit from Hee-Jin, a requirement that she readily acquiesces to for the right price. She's not without a vindictive streak, however, and will punish anyone who mistreats her by tipping them into the water or through other mean-spirited tricks. Hardly a mean thing to do, really, unless you cannot swim, which is what happens to one jerk when he fails to do right by Hee-Jin. Actually, most of the people visiting the lake are jerks of one sort or another. Even the harridans and their violent employer, who show up at the water's edge from time to time at the request of a guest, are decidedly unfriendly. Most of the film focuses on Hee-Jin's seemingly mundane daily activities and the people who visit the lake. Everything changes when a depressed loner by the name of Hyun-Shik arrives on the scene. He rents a floating cabin and stays there much longer than anyone else does, and it's obvious he isn't that interested in fishing. The stranger piques Hee-Jin's interest.
Through a few quick flashbacks, the movie reveals that Hyun-Shik is actually a man on the run, a fugitive from the law for a crime he committed prior to arriving at the lake. In his other life he was a police officer, but he was also an extremely jealous, possessive man who killed his significant other. During his tenure on the water, Hyun-Shik generally keeps to himself until Hee-Jin gradually intrudes on his life. She introduces him to the wonders of fishing and rescues him after the police turn up at the lake looking for fugitives. In an effort to escape the long arm of the law, and since he's trapped on a float in the middle of a lake with no means to reach the shore, Hyun Shik swallows a bundle of fishhooks in an effort to escape incarceration. He needn't have gone to such extremes, however, as the police find another man to arrest and leave. Oops. Talk about an overreaction of a lifetime! Fortunately, Hee-Jin powers up in her little boat and nurses the ex-police officer back to health. The two then strike up a tempestuous relationship that leads to murder, Hee-Jin's own encounter with fishhooks, and a truly enigmatic conclusion that left me scratching my head in confusion.
I spent more time paying attention to the atmosphere of the film than I did trying to decipher the characters' motivations. The lake is a grim, brooding body of water located in the middle of nowhere, often shrouded with fog and haze. The little floating cabins and a few of the people who come to stay for a few days represent the only real color seen in the film. What does that mean? Well, perhaps it hints at the nature of Hee-Jin's and Hyun-Shik's self-imposed isolation from the rest of the world. More interesting is the symbolism of the fishhook atrocities, a particularly interesting symbolism seeing as how it is tied to the purpose of those who come to the lake. The customers stay to catch fish, but Hee-Jin and Hyun-Shik catch each other by using emotional pain as bait. Each responds to the other more directly after the hooks dig into the other's flesh, realizing that they are both similar in outlook and nature. That their relationship results in the taking of a life shouldn't be too surprising considering how damaged both of these people are. "The Isle" means something like that--I don't know. My experience with films like this tells me that those viewers without knowledge of the culture in question (re: me) probably won't grasp the finer points of the plot.
The DVD version of "The Isle" includes a music video, a making of featurette, interviews with the cast and the director, a trailer, and trailers for "Tuvalu," "Merci Pour Le Chocolat," and "The Trial of Henry Kissinger." Although I am sure I missed a lot of what the movie tried to achieve, one cannot deny the beauty of this film. It's highly unlikely an American studio will remake this depressing picture, though; they like material with a lot of flash and fire, which makes "The Isle" far too subtle for their tastes.
Rating:
Summary: Reflective, Visually Beautiful, and Torturously Painful...
Review: The fish in the sea live to find food for survival, reproduce to maintain the species, and avoid deadly encounters while traveling, sleeping, and defecating. The strong maintain the species through alienating, or killing the weak as they are perceived as a threat to the survival of the group. These notions, heavily reflected by Darwinism, are also the basic idea of human existence by which many people live as they go about their daily habits. However, these basic needs for maintaining the human race do not reflect on how emotions can color and bring texture to what otherwise could be a dull gray existence. For example, humans feel ecstatic as they make love, people feel pain when something penetrates their skin and enters the flesh, and people have happy memories of pleasant smells of good food as it brings to mind moments of comfortable survival. These feelings of ecstasy, pain, and happiness among many more feelings are present in order to encourage behavior that will keep the individual and the species alive much like Pavlov's dogs salivated when they heard the bell prior to each meal that was served. In the Isle a bell rings whenever a fish is on the hook.
The Isle begins with a man, Hyun-Shik (Yoosuk Kim), that arrives to a remote lake, possibly connected to the ocean, with what seems to be all of his belongings. A birdcage with a bird is among the items that Hyun-Shik brought, which has a symbolic meaning as he removes himself from land by renting a small hut floating on a raft. There is no connection with land, except by a woman and her old boat, but it seems to be what Hyun-Shik seeks as he begins to dwell on his wrongdoings that led him to seek shelter at this remote location. In deep contemplation and agony Hyun-Shik considers to commit suicide as he has apparently killed someone of importance in a moment of vengeance. It becomes an overwhelmingly internal struggle for Hyun-Shik whether to pull the trigger, or not, as he weeps out his anguish.
The other main character is an emotionless woman, Hee-Jin (Jung Suh), who watches over the lake and the inhabitants of the many huts that she rents out. In many ways Hee-Jin behaves like a fish as she nurtures her visitors as if they were her babies. She brings them food and frequently ventures to the cabins at night to give herself to the visiting men. There is no emotional connection for Hee-Jin with the men, it merely seems to be something she does for some unknown reason as she does not say anything, or ask for anything in return. However, one of the men that Hee-Jin copulated with insults her by throwing money in the lake, which is an analogy that expresses the man's way of displaying how it was a waste of time and effort. In anger Hee-Jin acts out in the middle of the night while the man who offended her is about to make a nightly toilet visit into the lake.
When a person is aware that he or she cannot experience compassion, feelings, or emotions it becomes a quest to conquer what most people find to be an ordinary experience in order to remain strong. Hee-Jin discovers Hyun-Shik suicidal and weeping in a pathetic display, yet she feels something, which she cannot define. Hee-Jin begins to explore what she felt by killing frogs and fish, which she attempts to feed to Hyun-Shik's bird. In loneliness Hee-Jin drinks alcohol without effect as she approaches Hyun-Shik with the bottle, which the man presumes to be a sexual invitation. As a result, Hee-Jin hits Hyun-Shik and returns to land as she insults him by hiring a prostitute for him, but she discovers something called envy. This leads the unbalanced couple into an eye wrenching display of bizarre self-disfigurement as they strive to remain within a tormenting relationship that is embedded in pain and suffering when Hyun-Shik seeks distance.
The director, Ki-duk Kim, portrays Hee-Jin and Hyun-Shik in an internal struggle where the affection for one another expands as they discover more about each other through gut wrenching scenes. The artistic background of Kim is evident as the Isle becomes a stunningly beautiful film to view as several scenes depict skilled framing of each scene. It should be mentioned that Kim's later films Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring (2003) and Samaria (2004) display his visual cunning as they also offer the audience visual analogies that are planted within the film for the audience to ponder. Some of these seeds that Kim sows within the visuals of the Isle display several notions that should be be reflected upon such as existentialism, Darwinism, moral issues, and emotions. Kim succeeds efficiently to grasp the audience and force them to ponder, as the film leaves most of what is depicted to the audience's own interpretation.
Rating:
Summary: HOOKED
Review: THE ISLE (First Run Features) is beautiful and bizarre. A man with a past seeks sanctuary on a lake where a woman rents fishermen small, floating rooms. In silence she brings supplies and prostitutes herself. The horrors that follow are joltingly extreme and not for the squeamish. Seriously. You have been warned, so don't blame me.
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