In a world where Wedding Crashers invades your personal space like a loud tartan-wearing tourist from across the pond, convincing someone to go and see a foreign language film is always going to be a challenge. Like offering sushi to someone who's never tasted it before, they're probably going to look at you with raw horror, make their excuses and leave for the nearest McDonalds.
Now tell them that the main character in the film doesn't say a word for the entire 90 minutes and my guess is you're on a hiding to nowhere.
Which is a shame because I'm sitting here on a high having seen one of the best movies to come long this year, and if you were sitting here too I'd drag you back to see the next showing, like it or lump it.
3-Iron is a Korean love story with a measure of passion, plot and wit missing from most of anything else around at the moment. The story must be conceded, at the very least, to be inventive. A young man moves from house to house whilst the occupants are away, stealing nothing and repaying them for their unknown generosity by doing the washing, repairing broken belongings and tending to the plants. One night he finds himself in a house believing himself to be alone, but in fact finding a young woman, battered and bruised from a cruel husband. Without a word spoken they fall in love, become lovers and continue the young man's strange life together, though not before he has taken revenge on the husband for his brutality. Their new life together is bizarre and, at times, deeply amusing. Eventually it all catches up on them and they are arrested. She returns home to her husband, who convulsed with jealousy, arranges retribution on the young man whilst in jail.
His time in prison is well spent as he learns to be invisible....yes, you got that right. Not literally so, but by silently moving around people so that, even as they turn around, he remains unseen. These scenes with a prison warden in a tiny cell, still unable to see him, are wonderfully shot (the cinematography throughout is excellent).
Once released, the young man returns to the woman's house to live alongside the husband without him ever knowing. This is incredible to watch and culminates in a unreal scene where the husband embraces the wife as she kisses her lover, knowing nothing about it. Their love is left neither unrequited or fulfilled in this halfway house....an extraordinary ending to an extraordinary film.
This is a beautiful film, with a serene oriental feel. This setting works very well, but like all good stories, it could take place in any age or place and still have the same impact. After a few interesting films over the past couple of years, Ki-duk Kim has done something to merit his title as the best Korean director on the scene today.
