Address Unknown (2001)

 

Director: Kim Ki-duk

Screenplay: Kim Ki-duk

Cast: Dong-kun Yang as Chang-Guk; Young-min Kim as Ji-Hum; Ban Min-Jung as Eun-Ok; Jae Hyun Cho as Dog-Eye; Pang Eun-Jin as Chang-Guk's Mother; Myung Kye-Nam as Ji-Hum's Father

Ephemeral Waves

 

Rotting corpses are supposed to add flavour.

[For obvious reasons, due to the figure who directed-wrote this film, some readers may be best served to skip this review, effectively an entire Trigger Warning for a self published blog review. This will be completely understandable.]

An ill advised creation of a pop gun made from wood and elastic, but with a small explosive the equivalent of a bullet, alongside an even more ill advised game of William Tell leaves the female lead since childhood with damage to one eye, and thus begins this film from a South Korean filmmaker who is now a contentious one. Kim Ki-duk, whose passing in 2020 due to COVID-19 went by with barely a whimper in most press, was marked in 2018 when allegations of rape and sexual molestation were raised. Considering this involved PD Notebook, the South Korean investigative news show, broadcasting an episode with anonymous testimonials from women who made claims of being victims whilst working with him¹ poses a real problem for me if confirmed fully. The lawsuit and allegations against him were part of a momentous #MeToo shake up in South Korean filmmaking², and confirmation of any of them would present an uncomfortable image as someone who came at the right time to his films. For all their potential concerns with their extremity in the literalisation of the emotions, I found something within them of worth. It undercuts them with the painful reminder even if the art can be profound the human artist behind them can be beneath them and fail the art, hence why we cancel these people.

Address Unknown, one of the earlier films distributed in the United Kingdom, is set by 1970s, a considerable time after the Korean War which divided the country into North and South, in a rural community where a US military base is nearby. Among those central to the story are three leads: one Chang-Guk (Dong-kun Yang) is mixed race, his father one of the US soldiers who came over, Eun-Ok (Ban Min-Jung) the girl whose eye was damaged by her older brother as a child, and Ji-Hum (Young-min Kim), an introverted figure whose crush on Eun-Ok, working with an artist who specialises in portraits and photos of the US soldiers with their Korean wives, is contrasted by a voyeuristic nature, not helped because he does spy on her changing at her house, nor his bullying by two other young men which will force him to drastic measures for revenge. To say bleak for Address Unknown is an understatement, one of the issues with Kim Ki-Duk, even for this one of his more subdued works, being an obsession with internal angst externalised, masochism and sadism, and a nihilistic worldview for the most part. Post Korean War here, for him, is literally the dog eat dog metaphor taken to the point heavy handed is absurd to suggest. Dogs are literally being killed and sold as a food source by Dog-Eye (Jae Hyun Cho), a "dog catcher" who is dating Chang-Guk's mother (Pang Eun-Jin), and having him work with him; even if the idea of eating a domesticated dog, depending on your country of origin, is not as perverse as others may think and a naturally accepted food source, Dog-Eye's method of hanging a dog and beating it up with a baseball bat is naturally quite nasty.

It is quite obvious what Ki-duk though of the Korean War, this aftermath where those left, trying to get on and especially the children of those who served in the war, wander off adrift in their own obsessions, with the weight of another country in the United States on them. Even the Americans over in the country, as represented by one soldier (Mitch Malem), are struggling with the angst of being stuck in a place away from home themselves, his trajectory starting with wanting to court Eun-Ok as a "comfort" girlfriend, even with the bargaining of being able to fix her eye. The leads' families are spectres of this war:  Eun-Ok's family is reliant on the pension for a father who has never returned and was presumed to be a war hero, changed when the government suggest he willingly fled to North Korea; Chang-Guk's mother, bordering into psychologically unstable, pines for his father, the "Address Unknown" from letters she has sent out to try to find him returning, whilst he has the pressures of racism against his heritage; and Ji-Hum's father (Myung Kye-Nam), proud of killing three soldiers, pines for his proclaimed right to be a hero, all a folly with his complete disregard for people over status and the delight he had in having killed with a gun. Literally, as they find a corpse of a North Korean soldier under his house, the bones left, the photo of their family ignored, and the bones quietly thrown in a river without the consequences of the human life lost. There is no virtue in a war, never seen onscreen, which not only left North and South Korea permanently divided, but is depicted at the time of this film as having left this rural community in such a impoverished state that, with the selling of dog meat, that will include family pets if people need the money. Men are still missing this late on, after the war ended in 1953, dead on old battlefields, and the world has changed as the veterans are practicing the ancient art of archery, reminiscing of this past, some with false legs, whilst even a looked down upon seller of dog meat is allowed to stand on the archery field with them.

Ki-duk's filmmaking, even before his ultra-low budget films of the later era, were grounded, their moments of unnaturalness (like the unfortunate death of someone here falling head first from a motorcycle into a muddy field up to their waist) part of the heightened tone of his work, like the violence, exaggerated on purpose. Hindsight, with the controversies around him, do make me wary now, but Address Unknown without subtlety required does paint a pretty blunt view on what a community would be like after something as drastic as the Korean War. It does almost have the mentality to its depiction as Shōhei Imamura depicted Japan post-World War II, those in the gutter and those who have survived, though Ki-duk's transgressive streak is that even the least expected person, the one innocent here, does however encourage their dog to perform sexual acts on them to try and find pleasure in the world that is entirely dysfunctional.

The only thing which undercuts the tone of the film at all is that the American performances in English are awkward, which is an issue as the soldier Eun-Ok is dating, which her mother eventually approves, is a dysfunctional figure of importance. There is clearly a negative view of the United States, but also awareness with his character, coping high on LSD and obsessed with Eun-Ok eventually to cruel ways, is like other Ki-duk characters. Only that he is the English speaking equivalent of many others from the director's career, a drifter whose desperation reaches breaking point as he finds his place outside his homeland, is different, the endless military drills eventually becoming unbearable until he snaps. Dogs among them are a heavy handed but apt metaphor for the whole film, everyone be they owned or wandering the countryside on the rural tracks. They befit the world's rundown nature and even the eroticism, when an awakening for one person is from seeing a pair copulating in serenity, perverse as it befits sexuality throughout the director's career at times.

The hindsight of Kim Ki-duk, if his career is now confirmed to be tainted by his crimes, does cause problems with all his films, still left after him and not something you can just make invisible. They are now stuck, like paintings and songs of those who have been alleged or confirmed to have committed horrible crimes, left with the questions of how much they were influence by their creators' sins and that they exist connected to the men even after their deaths. Address Unknown is still a film which, even without this, might not be the type of film to easily win people over, due to its bleakness and complete disregard to defend itself. There are also scenes involving rape and violence which are now going to have uncomfortable connections to the allegations of the director-writer even if you can separate them in your mind as a piece of art. Another factor I would suggest is that, even if Ki-duk was not this figure now tainted with the likelihood of what he has committed, he even with winning the Golden Lion at the 69th Venice International Film Festival for Pietà (2012) among his many rewards was never going to change his films, and that his style even when it won awards could lead to films which would alienate people and cause a period of obscurity, especially as in his case ultra-low budget films, as by the end of his career, was something which he continually returned too, the type of films which are viewed as easily "sellable". His career could be too volatile in making a film too violence, too strange and liable to alienate people, but in his case, accusations of legitimate crimes undercut him, rightly if proven true.

He was never a Park Chan-wook who, for the violence in his films, his eventually became acceptable and he stretched his filmmaking from the initial "vengeance" trilogy of films which introduced him to the West and the idea violence was commonplace in his work. Ki-duk's reputation comes in the United Kingdom because Tartan Films released his films at the time they pushed forwards an "Asian Extreme" sub label. To their credit, whilst the title suggests a certain type of release, they are to be thanked for helping Takashi Miike and South Korean cinema in general, such as Park Chan-wok, gain credible footholds in Britain, and clearly Kim Ki-duk was held by a prominent member of the company, or had some name recognition, for Tartan Films to constantly bring out his films from between the 2001 to 2005 era of his career. His films after their closure were entirely dependent on whether they would be of interest for an international market, and even with his successes, he was though an acquired taste. In reality, with a posthumous final film Call of God (2022) premiered at the Venice Film Festival with further controversy and outcry³, real life has made this no longer a concern as now a more important issue casts its shadow on even accessing his films. His films will be difficult to come back to, and re-releasing them in itself is going to be an issue as in South Korea, his reputation is entirely tarnished by these deeply serious claims, as it will be for even fans of his films. I find myself in that same place too, Address Unknown still to be admired, but the man behind the film now to be scrutinised any time I watch these works of his.

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1) South Korean Filmmaker Kim Ki-duk Accused of Rape, written by Lee Hyo-Won, published by the Hollywood Reporter on March 6th 2018.

2) Berlin: How South Korea Is Embracing the #MeToo Movement, written by Lee Hyo-Won and published for the Hollywood Reporter on February 18th 2018.

3) Korean Film Figures Condemn Venice for Honoring Kim Ki-duk Despite Sexual Abuse Allegations, written by Soomee Park and Patrick Brzeski, and published by the Hollywood Reporter on August 29th 2022.