Beauty and the Beast was an original tale written by a French author in 1756 and is considered the gold standard for "unusual" love stories.(The best movie version of the original story was also done by a French film-maker and reviewed here by this writer -- La Belle et La Bete) I am guessing that if you go back far enough you will find many versions of equally twisted love stories through history, because love at its core is not always the stuff of Valentine cards.This extraordinary film is about love, it is also about justice, it is also about impulse control.It also gives a whole meaning to the term "unrequited love." I recommend it but suggest you leave your expectations at the door. Even the publicists for the film seem to have got it wrong -- the artwork for the DVD suggest a seamy sex movie and in fact that approach is completely wrong.Amazing.

I LOVE it when I find a new director who instantly appeals to me. Kim Ki-duk is my latest find; this is my third film of his, after SPRING, SUMMER, AUTUMN, WINTER...AND SPRING and THE ISLE, and it's just as engrossing and thought-provoking as those previous films. Yes, the subject matter might just be too dark and off-putting for some viewers, but nonetheless this is an expertly crafted South Korean drama.The storyline is deceptively simple, as in the director's other films: a low-life street thug becomes obsessed with a beautiful young woman, who rejects him. He decides to punish her by forcing her - through a set-up crime which leads to her being in debt to her - into becoming a prostitute. This is merely the beginning of the story, however, which focuses on the unusual developing relationship between the pair.BAD GUY is a slow moving film in which building scenes of simmering tension are shattered by bursts of sudden, harsh violence. It's a realistic movie that pulls no punches and is all the more effective thanks to the outstanding acting of Cho Jae-hyun as the thug and Seo Won as the broken woman. It's amazing that you don't end up despising the "bad guy" of the title despite his misogyny and crimes towards women and that despite all the depressing scenes this is somehow never a downbeat movie, just a very good one. I literally couldn't take my eyes off the screen...

This is a disappointment compared to Kiduk's other movies. It's hard to relate to the subject at all. The guy decides to ruin this girl , at the same time he has fallen for this girl. At the same time the girl falls for him in a weird way so they end up mobile pimping and hooking together?! Why did the man suspect the girl of stealing his wallet? Why did the girl accept to be indebted like that owing her body? Didn't the girl have anyone to turn to? What happened to the boyfriend? This movie contains these and many many other logical black holes not to mention the fact that the acting of anyone but the "bad Guy" is mediocre. The subject and the turn out of the events are too far-fetched to be believable.

If nothing else, this film will make you think- or to be more precise, rethink everything you thought you knew about what is right and wrong about love. Of course, the plot isn't very credible, and the drift into surrealism- that bit about the missing pieces of photos- merely adds to the moral confusion. The whole idea of a college-going girl in a fairly developed society like South Korea suddenly being blackmailed into prostitution because she is caught pick-pocketing is well, preposterous- to say the least. Surely, there are other- less violent- options for someone in her situation? Unless of course she doesn't want to be rescued. OK, I guess that's the whole point of the film: the age-old Stockholm Syndrome, where the victim does eventually fall in love with the victimizer. But the keyword is eventually... Still, it has a rawness to it, which some viewers- like this one- might occasionally find tedious.