Bad Guy

More sexual terrorism from the self-styled bad-boy outsider of Korean cinema - or is that Korean society? Mute thug Han-Ki (Kim's fave actor Cho) violently kisses middle-class college girl Sun-Wha (Seo) in a park - because she's trying to ignore him. Her punishment continues when he contrives to have her press-ganged into working as a hooker in the sleaziest red-light district the director can imagine. He watches her degradation through a two-way mirror, sometimes intervening to rescue her from abusive clients, until (surprise!) she falls in love with him. This neanderthal amour fou comes garnished with Freudian symbolism (some of it intentional), plenty of absurdly hyperbolic violence and the rough visual poetry that is Kim Ki-Duk's one intangible asset.