By APA Staff
Kim Ki-duk began his career as a painter, and then later an award-winning screenwriter, but is best known as the premier independent filmmaker in Korea. He grew up in a small rural town before his family moved to Seoul when he was nine. He had to leave school early, and worked in manufacturing before joining the marines, training to become a preacher, and finally going to Paris to paint. His highly experimental works explore the dark underside of Korean society, particularly the intersection of sex, violence, and power. His works have excited controversy as frequently as they have praise, but have always had a powerful visual impact and a peculiar awkwardness and tension. Despite little formal schooling and no training in filmmaking, he has risen to become one of the most important directors in East Asia and has won numerous awards for his works. Kim's attachment to provocative subjects and unique style has alienated him from mainstream Korean audiences, but has also made him a festival-circuit darling, especially in Europe. At once awkward, raw, and visceral, his films are also made with extraordinary sensitivity toward the most peculiar of subjects.
His major works include The Isle, Bad Guy, Samaritan Girl, and Spring, Summer, Winter, Fall . . .and Spring, and range in theme and style from sadomasochistic relationships and prostitution to meditative works of Buddhist parable. 3-Iron is currently in release in the United States.
-- Jennifer Flinn
Interview with Kim Ki-duk
Interviewed, translated, transcribed by Hyong Shin Kim
Assisted by Carl Wakamoto
APA: The story of this film, 3-Iron, is divided into three parts. Dividing a film into chapters is more clear in your recent films, Samaritan Girl and Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter…and Spring, because of the inter-titles in those films. And to me, each episode of the fishing ships in The Isle is like a chapter too.
Kim Ki-duk: Right. The first part of this film is about going to vacant houses and being discovered by the owner. The second is practicing not being discovered, through the training in a prison, and the last is not being discovered even though there are people present. Through this, I divided the image of the film into three levels. This is the process of gradually persuading an audience. Making it into three parts was necessary as one element of leading the audiences by helping them to think “oh, that could be possible.” Through those divided stories and through this film, I wanted to show that the boundary between reality and fantasy is obscure.
APA: Have you ever thought about using titles in 3-Iron?
KKD: No, I haven't thought about it. If I had used titles, they would be like “empty houses” for the first part, “ghost practice,” for the second and the third, “the ghost.” But I didn't think it was necessary.
APA: The prison scene where Tae-suk does "ghost practice" was very beautiful. What was your directorial intention in that part?
KKD: I wanted to visualize through film whether a person can really hide behind the back of another person. And then, if it is really possible, the person can go to a house where people are. Before Tae-suk gets that ability, he had to sneak into vacant houses so as not to be found out by people. But in the later part of the film, Tae-suk visits those houses one by one in order even while people are there, and he could avoid observation. Because he was able to make sure that he was invisible to the people in those houses, he could go to Sun-hwa's house at the end. The prison scene was necessary and important as a transition for the scene of Sun-hwa's house at the end.
APA: I have a few things to ask about Sun-hwa's actions. First of all, what's the reason for blocking Tae-suk's golf swing?
KKD: It's about violence. Because Sun-hwa blocks him, he changes the angle and this results in a person being hurt. If she hadn't blocked him, that might not have happened. But because of Sun-hwa's blocking, by changing the direction, it happens. It's ironic. Accidents can thwart our intentions. That's life, however good the intention.
APA: Why does she make her picture into a mosaic?
KKD: She wanted to escape from her past. She wanted to change her image herself.
APA: She breaks down the scale which Tae-suk has repaired before.
KKD: She thinks that the status of being out of order would be better. Because it is out of order, the scale of it could be zero later. Although we try to discern meaning, those meanings may become unimportant as time passes. She probably realized that, so the real weight became unimportant to her. Thus, the weight of the two people could be zero later.
APA: For me, it was an effort to reinforce her fantasy.
KKD: It's possible to interpret it that way. The meaning can vary for each audience member according to their own perspective.
APA: After seeing this film for the first time, I thought it might be a fantasy of Sun-hwa. If it is, three different versions may be possible. From the very beginning till the end of the film could be her fantasy, or it could be her fantasy after Tae-suk's first visit to her house, or after the police station scene.
KKD: Each interpretation of each viewer would be correct. But for me, it can be Tae-suk's fantasy as well. The fantasy coming from the mind which wishes that somebody would be in empty houses.
APA: I'm wondering about the meaning of the objects in this film. This film begins with a shot showing a woman sculpture [seen through the net beaten by golf balls]. A lion sculpture is also shown in the scene of the garden while Sun-hwa's husband is practicing golf. Again, those sculptures are shown in the background when Sun-hwa and her husband are sitting on the couch in the living room.
KKD: Those sculptures were actually there in the house where we shot the film.
APA: [laughs] No special meaning?
KKD: [laughs] Not really. I chose the objects that I wanted to shoot among the things already in those houses where we did location shooting. The house was a very wealthy house, and there were marble sculptures. I thought they looked very good in the frame and made the house look luxurious.
APA: I felt the woman sculpture was the image of Sun-hwa.
KKD: [smiles] It's up to the viewer. Even though it had that image, I just shot it like that.
APA: I don't want to go too much into detail for those who have not seen the film yet, but the ending of this film implies a strange co-habitation. What do houses, family, and marriage mean to you?
KKD: They are like making a big frame for communication. I think being in a family is the process of taking the ultimate exam as a human; how to treat each other, how to maintain the relationship for a long time, and how to understand a new family structure if a baby comes ... the test is based on the desire to be structurally sound rather than to be deconstructed. I think the family tests how possible or impossible those things are.
APA: Well then, the ending of this film might be a sort of new beginning rather than a deconstruction.
KKD: It could be. But I'm not quite sure if the ending was misfortune or happiness. From the husband's viewpoint, it is misfortune, and for the others who wanted it, that ending might be happiness. I think the last scene is ironic. In fact, this kind of situation can only be expressed in cinema. Nevertheless, such scenes can be imagined once in a while, I think.
APA: Some scenes of 3-Iron remind me of your previous films. [The image of the dirty Han River in The Crocodile, the house above water in both The Isle and Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter…and Spring, the oriental image in Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter…and Spring, the name of Sun-hwa in Bad Guy, etc.] What is the relationship of this film to your previous films?
KKD: There might be some similar scenes because I made them. I think those similarities are a sort of style -- the style which continually appears in my films. In Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter…and Spring there might be peculiar and impressive images, as there are also with Bad Guy and other films. Also in 3-Iron, there are scenes where I wanted to express my ideas more creatively, in my own way. I think those similar scenes come from the style that I use when making films.
APA: What did you want to express throughout the film?
KKD: Well, it may be the words said at the end of the film: “it's hard to tell whether the world we live in is reality or a dream.” Just as in this room, now. Our life is not clear about what is true and what is false. In fact, there is no clear boundary between those two, and this is how we live. What I wanted to express is, it is in confusion whether I do the right thing or the wrong thing at this moment.
APA: One tendency of the arguments in recent critical discourse about your films in Korea is whether Kim Ki-duk has changed or not. Do you think your films have changed, or do you think what has changed is the critical discourse surrounding you?
KDK: I think discussion is the critics' and journalists' job. In my opinion, those writings result from the logic that they should make their opinions about this and that and anyhow, it is their job and their work. Although I have rarely read their articles, the important thing is their thoughts. Even I don't know whether or not I have changed. Besides, it is not important. It's not clear to me what has changed or if I have changed.
APA: Would you please say something about you and your films as we conclude the interview? What is filmmaking to you?
KKD: Although there are various kinds of films nowadays, mine are not action, or melodrama, or even art cinema. A person does not have only one aspect but rather diversified aspects. I'm always interested in the different aspects of a person. Like peeling an onion, making a film is, for me, the process of discovering the manifold layers of a person one by one. I hope the audience enjoys thinking “right, that could happen,” when seeing my films.
APA: Thank you.
KKD: Thank you.
Filmography
The Bow (2005)
3-Iron (2004)
Samaritan Girl (2003)
Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring (2003)
The Coast Guard (2002)
Bad Guy (2001)
Address Unknown (2001)
Real Fiction (2000)
The Isle (1999)
Birdcage Inn (1998)
Wildlife Reservation Zone (1997)
The Crocodile (1996)
An earlier interview with Kim Ki-duk
Kim Ki-duk vs. Tsai Ming-liang