The Coast Guard

Colour, 35 mm
Korea, 2002, 95 min
Section: Official selection
Oficiální stránky: www.cineclickasia.com

Synopsis

Corporal Kang Han-chol, who has become a fanatic through army training, wants to catch a spy in the restricted border area. One night he senselessly shoots a young civilian named Jong-gil who has stepped into the prohibited area to make love with his girlfriend. While the female witness to this absurd slaughter is losing her mind, Kang Han-chol is awarded R&R for exemplary performance of duty. Although contact with civilians sets his conscience going, he still becomes a killing machine and presents an insoluble problem for his colleagues and superiors. After more violent incidents, he is discharged from the army, a decision he refuses to respect. He wanders the barracks like a "phantom" dispossessed, steals ammunition, and attacks his former friends…. Director Kim Ki-duk has here mixed a rough personal drama with a tense socio-critical allegory. The controversy surrounding the monstrous consequences of dividing the Korean peninsula are highlighted by surreal elements. This drama about a militant individual who wrests free of his commanders’ control is the next in a series of allegories the director has shot about the roots of evil and manifestations of violence.

About the director

Kim Ki-duk (b. 1960) came to filmmaking via an unusual route: he worked at several factories, spent five years in the army and was planning on becoming a priest. In 1990 he went to Paris where he earned a living selling his paintings. The main character of his feature debut Crocodile (Ageo, 1996) is a young man who robs the corpses of suicides. Wild Animals (Yasaeng dongmul bohoguyeog, 1997) follows the lives of two Korean immigrants as they get involved in the Paris underworld. The Birdcage Inn (Paran daemun, 1998) is about a young woman who makes a living with her body, and who becomes friends with the daughter of the family she works for. The filmmaker’s forth movie, The Isle (Seom, 1999), recalls an unusual love relationship marked by violence. The experimental film Real Fiction (Shilje sanghwang, 2000) comprises 12 etudes on the theme of humiliation and revenge. Set in the seventies, Address Unknown (Suchwiin bulmyeong, 2001) investigates the consequences of the American military presence in Korea. In the drama Bad Guy (Nabbeun namja, 2001) a gangster and pimp fall in love with a student who ends up in a house of ill repute. A retrospective of Kim Ki-duk´s work was shown at last year´s Karlovy Vary IFF.