Kim Ki-duk's `Address Unknown' Goes to Venice

Ryu Jin

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Director Kim Ki-duk and actor Cho Jae-hyun took their film, ``Address Unknown,'' to the Venice International Film Festival on Tuesday. This is the second time for one of Kim Ki-duk's films to be invited to the prestigious festival for competition, after last year's movie ``The Isle.''

The 58th Venice Film Festival, which runs from Aug. 29 through Sept. 8, decided to screen ``Address Unknown'' as its opening movie.

Kim's latest feature film follows the lives of three youths in the 1970s, with a U.S. Army base as a backdrop. The director's ``implied violence,'' one of the dramatic devices he often takes up, is contrasted with three youngsters, who were rejected from society after the Korean War.

The main character, Chang-guk, is the offspring of a Korean bar waitress and an African-American soldier. Eun-ok, with a cataract in her left eye, is a girl who agrees to bestow her body to an American soldier in exchange for getting eye surgery, and Ji-hum is a silent boy who can't manage to deal with his disabled Korean War veteran father.

As we have seen in so many novels, dramas and movies, Chang-guk's mother, a former prostitute, writes a string of letters to her husband, who has left for the U.S. She anxiously tells her son that his father will soon bring them to the U.S. Her letters, however, are always returned with the stamp ``Address Unknown'' on the envelope, where the title of the movie comes.

Kim implied that all the characters, not only Ji-hum's father, are ``disabled veterans of the Korean War,'' although none of them seem to realize that.

The film, unfortunately, attracted no more than 10,000 movie-goers and was pulled from cinema screens only a week after its release, making it another of his films that are unpopular at home, but rather highly estimated by overseas film festivals.

Cho Jae-hyun, who turned up as a ``dog butcher'' who met his death after being attacked by a flock of angry animals, and who starred in Kim's recently completed film ``Bad Guy,'' accompanied him to the film festival.

From www.koreatimes.co.kr

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