Wild Animals

Colour, 35mm
Korea, 1997, 103 min
Section: Kim Ki-duk

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.