Sharing this movie review....
At work, we get this magazine showing all the upcoming releases.... Home Media Retailing. We got the latest issue today, for June 5-11, 2005. I found 2 movie reviews, one for The Pacifier, which I might also share, and one for a movie called Bad Guy.
The concept is extremely disturbing, and downright disgusting, IMO. Yes, cultures around the world vary from the US. But I still find myself squicked out majorly by this, and find it completely UNbelievable.
When a local pimp is publicly humiliated by a snobbish college girl, he manipulates her into a life a sexual slavery in his brothel. From behind a two-way mirror he observes her play-by-play debasement at the hands of cruel and indifferent johns. But what starts off as a morbid tale of revenge turns into, improbably enough, a love story.
In the spirit of Secretary, Bad Guy is a story about love's more curious extremes - in this case, the perfect union between a sadist and a masochist. Over the course of the girl's forced transformation, the pimps finds himself growing more and more infatuated with his captive. Her defilement at the hands of strangers makes her more attractive to him. She also finds herself drawn to him, although initially owing more to a kind of Helsinki Syndrome than true feelings of affection. It is only after weeks of captivity that she comes to recognize her feelings for what they are. When the pimp releases her, she doesn't want to go.
Usually when filmmakers deal with volatile material like this - sexual aberration in particular - there's a tendency to try to explain why anyone would behave like this. Bad Guy does its characters the service of not saddling them with a reductive backstory or lame psychoanalytical explanation. They are what they are, and they are no more condemned than they are applauded. Director Kim Ki-Duk here shows sufficient daring in exploring this kind of romance (if it can be called that), and in the process, solidifies his position as the ranking director of Korean New Wave.
Selling Points: Director Kim Ki-Duk had a considerable arthouse hit last year with Spring, Summer, Wint, and Fall... and Spring.
-Eddie Mullins
The concept is extremely disturbing, and downright disgusting, IMO. Yes, cultures around the world vary from the US. But I still find myself squicked out majorly by this, and find it completely UNbelievable.
When a local pimp is publicly humiliated by a snobbish college girl, he manipulates her into a life a sexual slavery in his brothel. From behind a two-way mirror he observes her play-by-play debasement at the hands of cruel and indifferent johns. But what starts off as a morbid tale of revenge turns into, improbably enough, a love story.
In the spirit of Secretary, Bad Guy is a story about love's more curious extremes - in this case, the perfect union between a sadist and a masochist. Over the course of the girl's forced transformation, the pimps finds himself growing more and more infatuated with his captive. Her defilement at the hands of strangers makes her more attractive to him. She also finds herself drawn to him, although initially owing more to a kind of Helsinki Syndrome than true feelings of affection. It is only after weeks of captivity that she comes to recognize her feelings for what they are. When the pimp releases her, she doesn't want to go.
Usually when filmmakers deal with volatile material like this - sexual aberration in particular - there's a tendency to try to explain why anyone would behave like this. Bad Guy does its characters the service of not saddling them with a reductive backstory or lame psychoanalytical explanation. They are what they are, and they are no more condemned than they are applauded. Director Kim Ki-Duk here shows sufficient daring in exploring this kind of romance (if it can be called that), and in the process, solidifies his position as the ranking director of Korean New Wave.
Selling Points: Director Kim Ki-Duk had a considerable arthouse hit last year with Spring, Summer, Wint, and Fall... and Spring.
-Eddie Mullins