Address Unknown - DVD Review

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Review

Directed by the best filmmaker from South Korea, Kim Ki Duk, ADDRESS UNKNOWN refuses the film school aesthetics of the bulk of current Korean films and delivers a disturbing and compassionate tale of Koreans living around a US military base. Full of characters with surprising depth, Ki Duk moulds a drama aimed squarely at the US military presence in his own country. In the introduction that accompanies the film on this DVD he states how he wishes that this film will expose to Americans the pressures their soldiers face and how they affect the local village community surrounding the base.

Set in 1970, the film starts out with a boy making a wooden gun out of a discarded US ammunitions box. Trying to shoot an object off of his sister’s head he misses and damages her eye. We are then introduced to the film’s characters. Chang Guk, half Korean and half African American, is a product of his mums affair with a US solidier who she is trying to find. Her returned letters are the basis for the films title as they all come back ‘Address unknown’. Chang Guk works for Dog Eye the local dog butcher and his mum’s new lover, who during these economically poor times is making considerable money buying up his friends pets and selling them to the local restaurant. Ji Hu, a portrait painters apprentice is in a constant state of being mugged and bullied by the two local bullies, and seeking out Eunok, the girl who he is in love with and the girl with one eye shot in the opening sequence. Ji Hu’s dad is a Korean war vet who has been overlooked for his role in that war and especially his killing of 3 North Koreans. Eunok’s brother is always asking his mum for money, and his mum is receiving a pension because her husband was killed in the Korean War.


As the film progresses we are also introduced to an American soldier who is on the verge of snapping and hates his military’s presence. He bumps into Eunok and through bribing her with the offer of the US Doctors fixing her eye becomes her part time boyfriend. But this complicates many matters, especially for Ji Hu. He has formed the habit of spying on Eunok at the home through a hole in the wall, and much to his amazement discovers her very worrying relationship with her pet puppy, which has a habit of being forced up her dress when she is dressed in her night gown. After getting her eye fixed Ji Hu rejects Eunok because she accepted the Americans help and because he preferred her with one eye…a situation that resolves itself towards the end of the film with Ki Duk’s trademark ‘you never know what will happen next’ approach. Anyone lucky enough to have seen THE ISLE, BAD GUY, SAMARITAN GIRL, THE BOW, 3 IRON, BIRDCAGE INN, THE COAST GUARD and to a lesser degree SPRING, SUMMER, AUTUMN, WINTER…AND SPRING will know what this means. For Ki Duk has the natural ability to surprise us at every turn in an uncontrived way, an ability that has led to audiences all over the work embracing his drama’s and making him one of cinema’s most interesting current filmmakers.


In ADDRESS UNKNOWN all the characters mix with each other in a cause and effect way, and all of their lives are moving through a natural arc. Time progresses and we are not too sure by how long, even though it is measured by Eunok’s puppy that grows older as the film advances. Chang Guk who has a very aggressive relationship with his mother beats her up occasionally, whilst also defending Ji Hu against the 2 local bullies. In turn Chang Guk is also bullied by Dog Eye for 2 main reasons. One for beating his mum up and two because he does not have the heart to kill the dog’s that Dog Eye slaughters. It appears that this killing is done in a traditional style, by putting a noose around the dog’s neck, pulling it up and clubbing it to death with a baseball bat. As things become more brutal, Chang Guk approaches his fears and leaves the rest of the film spinning out of control with a conclusion that can be described as a gripper. All the characters are coming to the end of their arcs and many surprises entail.


The film on one hand moves along effortlessly, with more plot and character progression than a 3 hour epic, but it is done with such a knowing control that it never becomes over powering. In fact, by the end of the film you really feel like you have done more than scratch the surface. As well as moments of tenderness the film is also filled with shocks. The rape of Eunok is troubling, as is her relationship to her puppy and the US soldier who at one point even forces his to take LSD against her wishes. Chang Guk moves between hero and villain by suffering the slander of being “a mixed blood bastard” and taking it out on his mother and the film’s two bullies. In one scene the threat of cutting his mum’s breast off becomes a real possibility. Dog Eye, a pragmatically hardened working man suffers a fate that definitely ranks as a Kim Ki Duk masterstroke. To say the least, the beasts get their revenge. I could go on and on but these things are definitely best discovered by the viewer. Lets put it like this, if you watch this film and make it to the end you wont be disappointed with the pay off.

The one slight gripe is that the main American actor is not the greatest actor in the world. In fact all the soldiers seem to suffer with ‘Frank from BLUE VELVET’ syndrome. However, the strength of the story glosses over this small crack, and although difficult to tell with a subtitled film, the Korean actors all appear very realistic, especially in their visual expression of confusion, anger and simplistic compassion. As we know Ki Duk is at his strongest when the characters say very little. In 3 IRON the 2 lover protagonists don’t even speak to each other.


The film is also full of unspectacular but remarkable imagery. The dog noose dangling in the water, the feet sticking out of the field, the paper eye and Eunok, the soldiers in the field at the end, I could go on and on. To accompany all this, the film is presented in what is listed on the box as Anamorphic Widescreen 1.85:1. It is a good copy and the film faithfully retains the intended grain and appears rigourously naturalistic in its capturing of the people in their environments. As the thrills happen within the story, this no thrills approach definitely does the film more justice and is intended on the part of the filmmaker. Anyway seeing SPRING, SUMMER, AUTUMN, WINTER…AND SPRING and 3 IRON will know his competence in this field. I listened to it in Dolby digital 5.1 Surround Sound but it does also come in the DTS equivalent. Although it wasn’t perfect and it had that metallic echo effect in some of the shots this didn’t make too much difference because it is not a film like LOST HIGHWAY or a war film where the experience of the film is carried by the use of the sound. The experience here is being involved in these people’s quite brutal and yet simplistic lives.

EXTRAS

INTRODUCTION BY THE DIRECTOR (35 seconds)
Here Kim Ki Duk provides a brief backdrop to his film and makes it clear that this one and THE COAST GUARD are related to some degree. It is a direct address to the American audience where he says he is happy that it is being released in the US.

INTERVIEW WITH THE DIRECTIOR (3 mins 30 Secs)
Way too short but still interesting, he briefly outlines why the characters are all emotionally disturbed and what he wanted to achieve by writing them like this. He says the brutality towards the dogs was a metaphor for the violence between the US soldiers and the Korean people and most interestingly, that US soldiers are free from punishment if they do something illegal or violent when they are staying in Korea under the SOFA treaty. As we have all experienced what a bunch of animals soldiers are on a night out, the fact that they have licence to act freely is quite worrying, a fact that Ki Duk is clearly presenting in this film.


All in all the film speaks louder than any other element. Although the copy is good and the sound OK, as well as the extras being way too short to satisfy this reviewers craving, the film is the showpiece. As a drama and a presentation of ordinary life, minus the end shocks, this film is unrivalled by any other Korean dramas I have seen. Although not as gripping as some of his other films, as a film it is probably one of his best so far. It is not as shocking as BAD GUY or THE ISLE, nor as beautiful as SPRING, SUMMER, AUTUMN, WINTER…AND SPRING or 3 IRON, but it holds many surprising twists and turns, all of which are unforeseen. When compared to the film school aesthetics of most of the current crop of filmmakers, and I include virtually all Korean horror films and Park Chan Wook’s films (OLD BOY and the like) this film is an object lesson for them all. It does not have the traditional 15 endings of most Korean films and as this filmmaker writes, directs, produces and even edits his own films, of which he has made about 10 or so in as many years, he is the real McCoy. Don’t accept second best, you got to see this guys films…

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