Bad Guy [DVD]

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.

There are several elements of this movie that make it a 5 star review. First off the plot is really the disassembling of the Bad Guy's mind, and how this entropy reveals anthropological clues to humans and prostitution. The American version would be titled the machinations of a pimp's mind. The story is easily blended to other cultures and ethnicities; the bad guy persona is found in about all cultures worldwide. There are several levels this movie, but the elusive quandry of what allows rational individuals to imprison themselves in difficult situations is never answered even with all of the answers revealed. It is understanding that in some cultures once a woman is branded a harlot, she is not allowed into society and is outcast to her denizen. That denizen in this movie is an inert character and one of revolting tedium. The small apartment where Bad Guy and his henchmen reside and the whorehouse they watch over along with the bedroom with its two way mirror are haunting. Their inescapable nature sears into the screen and brandish all that is evil about human trafficking. This movie is unredemptive and unapologetic with the theme of those who are on the fringe of society. This is particularly clear in a scene below a mighty bridge, when the gang sits and talks, that their labor contributed nothing to society's progress and edification; the bridge being the perfect metaphor that the rest of society labors legitimately. No background or family is revealed for any character making the mental constuct of this setting even more isolating.The only unnerving portions were the musical sequences at the beginning, otherwise it is a masterpiece. There is no genre under this which would fit, erotica is not and neither is love.

How do you make a dark film with meaning? I don't know, but this isn't it. The film presented a look at the world of human traffiking and that was valid. There are evil people like this in the world. The Bad Guy's interest in a "human package" didn't sell. To trafik in human lives in today's world is inexcusable. We know better. I gave it three stars b/c it is better to try and fail than not to try at all. We need to know this is real and it happens. The Korean film with the secret agent's girl friend being kidnapped is much better.

I suspect the director hates any group or individual feeling privileged. This is why the director uses the male lead, who's a petty criminal, to intimidate and coerce others to his will, including the female lead. And by destroying her privileged life, humiliating and degrading her into forced prostitution, somehow there is some form of retribution achieved.The viewer must then suspend reality and believe that the college girl/prostitute will fall in love with her tormentor. That's not love. That's about power and destroying a person's self-worth and character.Growing up in a crime invested, tough neighborhood, I know that there is a lot of injustice in the world. But if there is a lesson in life, if a street thug lives by the sword invariably, he will die by the sword. This guy would have been dead within 5 minutes in my neighborhood.If you enjoy watching a woman beat down and emotionally and physically destroyed, this a movie for you. But I suspect, the normal, psychologically mature person would find this story hollow and empty of any redeeming value.

I only enjoy the beginning of this movie, the middle part and the end do not make so much sense to me. I don't know how someone could have a gut to destroy a very innocent life of a beautiful girl like that, may be that's why it is called bad guy. Nevertheless, it still not making much sense to me, but worth watching for both ladies and guys for different lessons that come with the movie.

This is not a feel-good movie - some of the scenes of the female lead's initiation into the world of prostitution were cringe-inducing, as was some of the grisly violence - and the film evokes an overall mood of squalor and despair. However, the unconventional relationship that develops between the hapless young student and her silent brooding captor (the eponymous Bad Guy) is riveting, and oddly compelling and powerful. Both leads were excellent in portraying their characters, as was Ki-duk Kim's well-paced, thoughtful direction. The stark grittiness of the film is offset by the almost dream-like symbolism of the ending, and I found myself thinking about it quite awhile after I'd watched it. Highly recommended for those who enjoy thought-provoking cinema.

In this 2001 story, Sun-hwa is a college student but when she meets up with her boyfriend a strange, silent man forcibly kisses her and a fight ensues. Later she is framed as a pickpocket and is coerced into taking out a loan she cannot repay, unaware that the silent man is a pimp, she soon finds herself embroiled in the world of prostitution in order to repay her debts, but can she break her downward spiral or will she become another one of the ‘girls’?Basically this is a slow paced reworking of ‘Beauty and the Beast’ whereby a street thug who believes he will never find true love becomes fixated with a college student who shuns and humiliates him, so he takes revenge by bringing her down to his level as he watches through a two way mirror. There are no steamy sex scenes here but rather a detached and grimy view of life in and around a seedy ‘window’ brothel. The main problem was that despite some strong acting, the overall plot failed to convince and the ‘photograph’ side-plot simply added confusion [lose a *].The single disc opens to a main menu offering play, scene selection, set up options [5.1 default, DTS 5.1, 2.0 and directors commentary subtitles on/off] and extra features [cast interviews, behind the scenes, theatrical trailer, stills gallery and Asia Extreme trailers]. As an 18 rating and given the subject matter, this was bound to feature some nudity, but it’s all quite mild, while a rape and forced sex scene is inexplicit. The real strength of this is the way it conveys the sense of inevitability and helplessness the women undergo as their former moral compass changes.

Very good

Arrived in all good working order thanks

Forward purchase of a film to take away on holidays.