Wild Animals
( Yasaengdongmulbohogu-yeog )
- Colour, 35mm
- Korea, 1997, 103 min
- Section: Kim Ki-duk
- Director: Kim Ki-duk
- Screenplay: Kim Ki-duk
- Dir. of Photography: Seo Jeong-min
- Music: Kang In-ku
- Editor: Park Sun-deok
- Producer: Kwon Ki-young
- Production: Dream Cinema
- Sales: Korean Film Commission (KOFIC)
- Contact: Korean Film Commission (KOFIC)
Cast
Cho Jae-hyon, Jang Dong-jik, Jang ryun, Sasha Lukavina, Richard Borhinger, Denis Lavant, Laurent Buigeot
Synopsis
The only film by Kim Ki-duk set outside Korea. The film, originally entitled “Two Crocodiles” concerns two Korean emigrants to Paris. The none-too-talented painter Chung-hae (Blue Ocean) meets up with a Hungarian girl named Corinne; at the same time a former North Korean soldier named Hong-san (Red Mountain) crosses the border into France. He is helped out at a crucial moment by a Korean girl, Laura, the girlfriend of a gangster named Emil (played by Denis Lavant who starred in Leos Carax’s Boy Meets Girl and Bad Blood). After Hong-san accidentally assaults Corinne, the two Koreans join forces and set out on a crime wave. They eventually get mixed up with the local mafia, and even their personal relationships undergo turbulent changes. Chung-hae and Corinne’s love grows stronger but the girl’s brutal protector stands in the way: he demands a high price for letting her go. Getting the money together involves them in a hired killing and leads to a spiral of growing violence that eventually threatens Corinne herself. Chung-hae and Hong-san kill Emil and only just narrowly escape death at the hands of their French associates. But the inevitable payback may come from a completely unexpected source.
