Kim Ki-duk is a director with very personal characteristics, his aesthetic is very clear, one is exaggeration, and the other is abusive.
Kim Ki-duk's film "Holy" tells the story of a mother who seeks revenge for her son. The mother's son committed suicide because of loan sharks, so the mother approached Li Jiangdao, a loan shark thug, who did not know where to find out that the latter had no mother since he was a child. The way of revenge in his mind is very conceited, so that this ruthless thug can also experience the grief of losing a loved one. That is to let him recognize his mother, can't live without his mother and then lose his mother. As expected, everything went according to plan. The thugs were originally ruthless and ruthless. They could only be pierced after being softened, and they were indeed pierced.
Actor Lee Ting-jin, who played the thug, performed very poorly from start to finish. According to the reactions of the people around him, his role should be a version of death. He is ruthless, impeccable, and not even close to women. But what Li Tingzhen, with his lower eyeliner, shows, is just like a middle school 2nd youth. Every action has a villain in his body with open hands and jumping and shouting: "Am I handsome? Cool or not? The teacher is afraid. Aren't you afraid of me?" All his expressions, all his reactions, were very exaggerated, and the performance was full of meaning. After he was softened by the fake mother, only one shot passed, and he showed the expression of wanting to breastfeed. Personality changes very quickly, with no transitions. The scene where the mother and son were playing balloons in the downtown area was really embarrassing and ashamed for the actor. This was a thug with a soft heart, not a mentally handicapped one! Why go to play with balloons and giggle?
However, Zhao Minxiu, the actor who played the mother, performed very decently from beginning to end. He did not look like a fool, nor did he treat the audience as a fool. Zhao Minxiu is very beautiful, her eyes are colder than that of a thug, so she is very suitable for disguising as a thug's mother! But those extremely beautiful eyes can make the eyes flow in the tender moment, and there is both ambiguousness and motherhood that emerges occasionally between them and the thugs.
Returning to the movie itself, the vengeful mother and another couple who were maimed by the thugs, the hatred for the thugs all came from his "using money to test humanity". I don't think that loan sharks are purer than loan sharks. Shouldn't debt repayment be the basic principle of the world? Is it "noble" to refuse repayment just because it is a loan shark? Kim Ki-duk tries to explore the impact of money on people in the movie. I don't think the movie has reached this level, and he doesn't have a convincing conclusion. It's just a bunch of incompetent and greedy people who met ruthless people doing their essential work. I have some admiration for the latter because of his conscientiousness.
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