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In modern South Korea, conscription remains the norm. The
conscripts are used to guard the coastline against possible
infiltration by North Korean spies. This has a number of effects
on those charged with such a dull duty. Some find only disinterest
and boredom but for some, like Private Kang Han-Cheol, the
dream of actually catching or killing a spy drives an ever
increasing unrealistic desire for glory. When Kang accidentally
murders an innocent man, whose only crime is to stray into
a prohibited area to spend time with his girlfriend, the authorities
feel that the best thing to do is pin an award on his chest
and send him off on holiday. However, Kang finds it increasingly
difficult to deal with the fact that he has been the cause
of not only the man's death but also his girlfriend Mi-yeong's
madness and his own eventual disgrace. As the weight of his
guilt increases, he slowly starts a journey into violent madness...
The
Coast Guard (Hae Anseon, 2002) was written and
directed by Ki-duk Kim - a director known for exploring the
effects of militarization on his country. And in this it thematically
examines much of the same ground as Address
Unknown (2001). Outside of Asia Ki-duk Kim
remains most famous for his 2000 film The Isle (Seom),
which is most probably his best film so far.
The
Coast Guard did well at the Karlovy Vary International
Film Festival, winning three awards for Ki-duk and being nominated
for a further one. Ki-duk Kim as both as writer and director
seems to continually suffer from the same problems. There
is nothing wrong with his initial concepts or his sense of
scene setting, or initial narrative disposition, but a lot
of his films start to wander off the point both in narrative
and style about half way through and this is true of The
Coast Guard.
It
would be disingenuous to criticise the actors too heavily,
after all Ki-duk both wrote and directed the movie, so the
interpretation and delivery of both the script and the direction
are purely down to him. Having said that, within the body
of the film, Jang Dong-gun does an excellent job in the first
half of the film as he transforms the naive Kang from an over
enthusiastic new recruit to the troubled murderer. On Ji-a
Parks side she has increasing less to do in the film after
the gory death of her boyfriend.
The first half of the film is an excellent look at two peoples
decent into madness, however about half way through the film
Ki-duk seems to have decided to hit his film with the silly
stick, thus undoing much of the drama set up in the first
half, if we are honest this seems to be a failing of many
of his film, good premise, god initial set up, flabby unbelievable
ending.
The disc comes with the usual good audio options that we have
come to expect from Tartan releases with the option of either
stereo, 5. 1 or DTS, with English subtitles. The extras are
not bad either, with an introduction by the director, a music
video, the original theatrical trailer and the ever interesting
Tartan trailer reel. Your also get 'Breaking Down Borders'
which is a look at the film with interviews with the director.
So,
like most of his films, it is a flawed piece, but then again
it points to an important future story teller. Even given
its flaws this is an interesting if not wholly satisfying
film.
Charles
Packer
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