valis1949 ADDRESS UNKNOWN is such a grubby and begrimed film. It features ugly characters in ugly situations and settings, and offers little or nothing in the way of artistic redemption. It is nearly impossible to believe that the same director, Ki-duk Kim, fashioned the elegant and haunting film, "3-Iron" which charted the despair and loneliness of a homeless couple who seek solace and sanctuary in the empty vacation homes of strangers. ADDRESS UNKNOWN skirts the line between pathos and bathos, and then plunges in without a backward glance. Thus, ADDRESS UNKNOWN becomes almost punch-drunk and silly instead of emotive or poignant.

cephalocereus This movie is a portrait of human beings. There are no "the good ones" and "the bad ones". The characters are victims of their circumstances. The problem I saw in this movie was: there are so many stories that after 80 or 90 minutes the film becomes tedious and artificial. Every single story has a dramatic end. There are so many screams, cryings and dramas that it begins to be artificial. Although I know in war is impossible to have a big smile in the face; in this case is a drama after drama within a whole drama. Thus the movie loses its effectiveness. I think the movie must show more clearly the main story and use two or three stories, as maximum, to support it. I have seen better movies of Kim Ki Duk, that's why I rate this one with a 6.

FilmFlaneur Kim Ki-duk's film has been a while making its appearance, at least in the UK and after viewing it, in some ways one can see why. As unflinching and as memorable as the other works which have made him out as perhaps Korea's finest filmmaker - The Isle, Bad Guy (2001), 3-Iron (2004) included - Address Unknown (aka: Suchwiin bulmyeong) is as uncompromising in its view of humanity as any of them, and with many of the director's characteristically disturbing moments intact.Set in and around a US air force base in Korea 17 years after the end of the Korean conflict, and mainly focusing on the travails and tribulations of the residents of a nearby village Address Unknown was, the director says, a way to explore and represent the dehumanising effect of war. It's also, as others have noticed, about other things too: language, family relationships, the debasement of tradition, and violence amongst them. There is no real central point to the film, although arguably the relationship between the American flyer and Eun-OK (Min-jang Ban) gives it its main drama. Korean cinema frequently has at its heart the pain caused by the 1950s' war and the painful division of the country into two halves thereafter, Here the psychic trauma created is symbolised by the base, and the pain resulting is acted out in varying degrees by those who live and work in its shadow.In Kim's unnamed village the principal business appears to be the butchering of dogs for food - a particularly brutal affair, though the film does claim no animals were mistreated during the filming - by one Dog Eye (Jae-hyung Jo, also notable in Bad Guy and The Isle). Dog Eye despises teenaged Chang-Guk (Don-kun Yang) the son of an absent American soldier, for being of mixed descent. Letters to his missing father, sent from his mother, are being returned 'address unknown'. For his part, Chang-Guk makes his solitary friend in Ji-Hum (Young-min Kim, also in the same director's much more contemplative Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring, 2003). He's a sensitive, withdrawn artist, bullied by his war veteran father. Meanwhile Ji-Hum has a crush on Eun-OK. With her eye damaged by a childhood accident, she in turn has a relationship with an unstable, drug dealing American flyer, (Mitch Malum), who promises her a corrective operation on the promises of becoming his girl...The bleakness of the film, one both of landscape and the heart, reminded this viewer of the Chinese film Blind Shaft (aka: Man Jing) made the same year. But the latter is more about the degradation wrought by political economics, whereas the malaise at the centre of Kim's work is more pathological. It is also more relentlessly grim and less cynical than that tale of couple of serial killers at work in Chinese coal mines to such an extent that the viewer at times wonders if anyone will be left alive by the end. This narrative ruthlessness, as critics have noticed, ultimately undermines some of the impact the film might otherwise have had.Another flaw is the performance of the main American actor; Malum's acting has been for some a distraction, although I found it weak, if passable. Korean directors sometimes make unfortunate casting decisions for their English speaking parts, one thinks of the problems which attend the otherwise excellent J.S.A. No doubt the home audience would not care about or notice such shortcomings, so it seems pointless to chide Kim too much over this weakness, especially as elsewhere the cast are generally excellent.Ultimately, what makes Address Unknown so striking is Kim's imagery and the choice of actions by his characters, so spiritually and emotionally rootless. Seen in this light, the writer-director's title is especially apt, both referring literally to the official stamp on front of envelopes returning to the mother, as well as to the anonymous village of his stories. Like Bad Guy and The Isle, the current film also contains individuals who exist on the edge of human relations, although here it is not just persecuted lovers. To a certain extent all of his characters have lost their way, either represented living rootlessly in an old army bus, being casually inhumane to animals or each other, or simply by valuing preferment - suggested by army medals, relics and pensions, even just good looks, over genuine human connection. And when times are so out of joint, some striking images are the result: the death of a major character head buried in a frozen paddy field; a man hung by dogs; the cut-out paper eye (an especially treasureable, Dali-esquire moment) on the face of Eun-OK, the killing of the dogs over a dirty puddle, and so on. In fact there's a touch of surreality about the film that continues right until the end, with the soldiers crawling in the field. Kim's achievement is in unifying so convincingly, and without any monotony, a multi-charactered narrative that includes such extreme concerns as disfigurement, minor bestiality, and murder. If you fancy such a strong and austere cinematic brew, then you won't be disappointed.

jallie Wow. I never felt so scarred after leaving the cinema and seeing a good film. Doom is making it's appearance and it will not go away even after the very end. The whole setting of the film is marvelous. Desolate, hopeless and there's no way out of the barren landscape. All persons are victim of this place, knowing they cannot escape, with all consequences. The fact that those who should have gotten it don't, makes it a very bitter ride. I watched every second, hopeless but fixed to the screen. Only minor is the somewhat overacting of some of the featured American soldiers, but okay still a perfect 9 out of 10. Highly recommended, another fine piece of Korean cinema.