just finished watching "Unknown Recipient", this 2001 work feels a bit like the early "Under the Erotic Roof", It may be because many plots of "Unknown Recipient" also take place in a simple Korean-style courtyard. The idea that the director wants to convey is clear and simple, that is, the US military stationed in South Korea, the Korean War, and even pushing it out. The heart and physical wounds brought to the Korean people by the bloody storm in the process of "promotion" of modernization throughout the 20th century, this idea started from the beginning of the film. It can be seen from the accidental injury (Kim Ki-deok likes to use very detailed props or character actions in the film to present the background and plot of the story, which is obviously more clever and elegant than the almost nagging dialogue in ordinary film and television dramas. , so for those who are more careful, they don't have to endure the almost clumsy plot confession like an expository written by a middle school student), all the damage is followed by the opening layer by layer.
It is a pity that there are many protagonists in the film, regardless of their importance. The tragedies are scattered on various people and appear cluttered. The audience's sense of trauma, which is "shallow" and unable to cry out, accumulates to a certain extent. It continued to "climb" until at the end of the credits, the big bus with the words "Free" painted in bright red but slightly faded, the symbol of the "sanctuary" of liberal democracies in conquered lands was slowly consumed by fire , the audience's heart is estimated to be almost numb and it is difficult to regenerate feelings. In order to strengthen the tragic effect, or to inject some elements of reincarnation into the film (the tragedy of another protagonist, Chang-kuk, was also unfolded step by step because of the separation of his mother and a black officer after getting married, and the title of the film is taken from the mother’s every The second letter to my husband was returned because the address was unknown), or in order to imply the reaction force of the trauma to the conquerors, so a strange love between Eun-wook and the American soldier was inserted in the film, which always gave people a far-fetched feeling .
It can be said that although "Unknown Recipient" is not mature enough in terms of overall grasp, it has gathered all the elements of Kim Ki-duk: implicit eroticism, hysterical violence, abnormal love that breaks common sense, sticky sadness, and from beginning to end. moral indictment, etc. The loneliness of the peninsula and the trauma of history have precipitated too much in this weak country, and the director's lingering national emotions have too much desire to pour out in the film...
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