The love that transcends and even rebels against ordinary people, the weird old man and his adopted daughter who will be transformed into his wife, the wretched and cowardly fisherman, the unintentionally intruding teenager and the countless possibilities he brings, the basic elements are almost so poor that they are monotonous. So the director added a bow among them, a bow that can shoot arrows, play and divination, a bow that guards the spiritual territory, a bow that represents violence and possession, a bow that interprets the tension and flexibility of love after split , a bow that shot into the sky and took the girl's first red bow in place of the dead old man. Then, the movie also became a fable with intense conflict. The fable about male metaphor no longer needs the era and environment, the protagonist's name, or even a line of dialogue. A plot that deviates from normal thinking logic does not necessarily have to be a rural legend, and the real magic is silent.
When the scene of the girl putting the fish hook in her mouth appeared, I immediately thought with a pale face of "The Drifting Room", a film that put my heart muscles to a huge test. In almost all links, "Bow" seems to be a sister chapter of the former, or a patch-enhanced version. The story of rafting on the water also has routes that can be developed and expanded, so there is a new imagination. The scene of the girl on the deck making love and bleeding with the soul in the wind and then being inserted into the skirt by the bow that falls vertically is amazing at the director's unbridled display of talent.
The old ship sank, the surviving teenage girl got the freedom of an unimaginable ending, the dead old man got the consummation of formal love, and even Kim Ki-duk can only helplessly allow modern civilization to triumph in front of his utopian setting , and also use a big reunion gesture. What remains is an immutable piece of water, like the personal signature of the narrator after the end. Kim Ki-deyomo is also a fan of Freud, and the use of the maternal symbol is so frequent that it has become a brand.
This is Kim Ki-duk's 12th film, and finally someone is starting to criticize my favorite director for his lack of breakthrough in personal persistence. It must be admitted that being trapped to death by style is the most common ending of genius, and "Bow" is indeed aesthetically exhausting disappointment in imagery. But even if it is repeated, there are probably not too many people in this world who can make a film that won the Venice Silver Lion in just 17 days. This may be the real difference between a master and a mediocrity.
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