A new Kim-Ki-Duk in World cinema

If you are waiting for a Kim-Ki-Dukian  movie, do not wait for Kim-Ki-Duk to make a movie. “Yang Ik June” will satisfy your Kim-Ki-dukian taste buds.

The new Korean movie “Breathless” marks the arrival of a new Kim-Ki-Duk in World cinema – Yang Ik June. This movie is the new sensation from korea, conquering film festivals and critical appreciation from the around the world.

Breathless originates from the dark side of human relationships. Throughout the film you can feel the violence which demystifies violence. The director is not concerned with viewers who would humiliate its characters. It does not try to make its characters appealing by concealing their stupidity. That is to say, it does not avoid absurd moments to make itself more romantic.

It can also see as a gangster movie but it gradually breaks away from all the traditional elements of a gangster movie. In the gangster traditional films, it is rather the sympathetic qualities that makes the gangster identifiable; the viewer somehow knows that actually the gangster is 'good hearted', and waits for that moment in which he reveals the good in him/her. But from the first scene breathless questions this perspective.

In the first scene you can see that- A man is beating a woman. Then another man comes along (“hero”) and beats the beater. At that point the viewer may think like "OK, this is the hero". Yet the scene continues and the man who beats the beater starts to beat the woman, blaming her for not fighting back. The viewer does not know if she/he is to laugh or get angry, to adore the guy or to degrade him.  

Interestingly this is the first film of Yang-Ik June and he played main role in this film. His performance as an actor was amazing…one may feel that his both skills were competing each other in this movie.