The Bow (2005) User Reviews

Poetry in silence

[p-stepien · 7/10 · 31 December 2010]

Probably Kim Ki-Duk's second most pivotal work to date "Hwai" ("The Bow") tells a story of unconventional love - one full of obsession, unfulfilled dreams and poetry. An old fisherman (Seong-hwang Jeon) lives on a decrepit boat together with a coming of age girl, which he rescued from death at sea, when she was no more than 8 years old. She came to live with him on this boat, where her only contact with the outside world are hobbyists, who pay money to come to fish at sea. All that keeps them company are themselves and the delicate music of a bow instrument. After years of caring after the girl the old man has come to love her, but not in a fatherly way. His longing is to marry the beautiful orphan once she reaches the required age...

Kim Ki-Duk is capable of beautiful storytelling, as is to be confirmed by such works of brilliance as "Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter... and Spring". And "The Bow" comes extremely close to such exceptionality, albeit never finally overcomes it's own weaknesses. Nonetheless this is an extremely enjoyable and delightful movie, even though filled with unrealised passions and immoral egoism. Even though the script is extremely simple, even threadbare, it never lingers and keeps you enthralled throughout. Not only by the impressive cinematography, but also the subtle acting and storytelling complemented by a riveting score.

Nonetheless the issues with Kim Ki-Duk as a storyteller are quite apparent. The strength of his movie is in lyricism, romanticism and ideas that do not necessarily fit in well with the modern cynicism of today. As long as the poetry is silent the magic overwhelms you. But the moment Kim Ki-Duk's characters start talking the spell is broken, as everything becomes mundane and at times even corny. Thankfully for "The Bow" our two main protagonists do not utter a word throughout the whole movie, whilst outsiders come few and far between. This allows the director to keep his movie consistent in its poetry, something which he was unable to convey in more previous movies such as "Dream" or "Time", where poetry transforms into 'corniness' and the story sells itself short. Even in "The Bow" you have a couple of very awkward scenes, which didn't seem to fit and came out as forcibly placed into the movie (especially a rather awkward self-masturbation scene near the end of it all).

Nonetheless a required watch for anyone who likes a bit of Buddhist philosophy for dinner.

moral ambiguity

[dromasca · 7/10 · 2 June 2013]

'The Bow' comes in the work of prolific Kim Ki-duk immediately after a series of three wonderful films - 'Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter ... and Spring', 'Samaritan Girl' and '3-Iron' and a few year after his other masterpiece 'The Isle'. I have somehow missed seeing it when it came out, or maybe it was not distributed in Israel. Now I caught up with the film on VoD and my impression is that it marks exactly the moment when the Korean director started a series of less successful experiments. Of course, one cannot expect even from a great director like Kim (and he is one of the best living creators in cinema) to produce only masterpieces. Hopefully he has in front of him many years of fine film making and we are here to enjoy his films.

Part of the problem with The Bow is that it repeats to some extent the format of the some of the previous successful films, taking a story of child-teenage initiation and mixing it with traditional (Buddhist I believe, but I am not very knowledgeable) concepts. So for viewers of some of his previous films, there is a strong and possibly intentional feeling of 'deja-vu', enhanced by the fact that as the story here happens in an isolated environment surrounded by water. The Old Man (Seong Hwan-jeon) is growing for the last ten years a Young Girl (beautiful Han Yeo-reum). They never speak. The only contact of the girl with the outer world is when visitors come for recreational fishing aboard, visitors from the outer world that that she may not remember. Some of them would like to abuse her but she and her protector know how to defend themselves with the help of the only weapon at hand, a traditional bow. Some other may come with better intents, as the young man who falls for the girl and tries to save and take her back to the world. But this is what she wants? This is certainly not what the old man wants, he plans to marry her when she reaches the age of 17.

There is a lot to think about and discuss around this story. Tradition faces modernity, is necessarily one better than the other? Does the girl really want to be saved? The old man may have saved an abandoned six years girl and grew her, but is he entitled to marry her and continue to control her life, to keep her isolated from the world. And is that world better than the smaller and innocent universe they were living in? His keeping the girl isolated may be judged by the world outside as kidnapping and abuse, is this the case? None of these questions have an unambiguous answer and this is not a problem, quite the contrary. Neither is acting (wonderful!) or the cinematography as good as you can expect in a film by Kim Ki-duk. The problem I have is with the final which I will not tell too many details about in order to avoid spoiling the pleasure of the viewing. There is a very strong metaphor here involving of course the bow, which produced me a shock and caused me an ambiguous feeling, not because of the visuals (I am used to much harsher things) but because of its meanings and the way it is directed and acted. For once I would have preferred a different way of ending. Kim Ki-duk decided differently.

Old School Kim Ki-Duk

[sain11 · 7/10 · 15 September 2005]

I must confess I am a huge Kim Ki-Duk fan, and have loved every one of his films. In my opinion Ki-Duk has directed 4 absolute masterpieces of modern cinema, Bad Guy, 3 Iron, The Isle, and Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter and Spring. Each of these films has gone some way to changing the shape, scope, style or accepted boundaries of modern cinema.

The Bow, however does not go to these lengths, but instead falls into the category of Ki-Duk's more eclectic and arguably more mainstream works like the Birdcage Inn or Samaria. This is by no means a bad thing as these are also great films in their own right.

Much like 3 Iron, the Bow has very little dialog, and much of the emotion is conveyed solely by glances, gestures or actions. This makes the film both more and less commercially acceptable to western audiences.

The Bow has re-confirmed Kim Ki-Duk as a modern cinematic maverick, an uncompromisingly original and visionary director.

Weird and Beautiful

[claudio_carvalho · 6/10 · 9 September 2009]

A sixty and something year old captain has been raising for ten years a girl since she was six in his old fishing vessel that is permanently anchored offshore with the intention of marrying her on her seventeenth birthday. He survives bringing fishermen to fish in the vessel and predicting the future using his bow and shooting arrows in a Buddhist painting on the hull of the vessel while the girl moves back and forth in a swing. He also uses the bow and arrows to protect the girl against sexual assault of the fishermen. They live happily until the day that a teenage student comes to the ship and the girl feels attracted for him. When the teenager discovers that the girl was abducted when she was six and does not know the world, he returns to the vessel to bring the girl back to her parents.

"Hwal" is a very weird movie and it is strange that I liked. The characters do not have names; the girl and the captain do not speak; the old man is apparently an abductor and pedophile; many situations are metaphorical and do not have reasonable explanation. On the other side, the cinematography and the music score are very beautiful; Han Yeo-Reum is extremely gorgeous and sweet; there is a permanent sexual tension along the story; and the screenplay is intriguing and engaging and I was expecting to see some sort of mysterious explanation, even that the girl would be a mermaid, for example. Unfortunately the conclusion is not subtle – actually it is gross - and is very disappointing, open to the most different interpretations. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "O Arco" ("The Bow")

The bow - a spiritual metaphor

[horia-cristescu · 10/10 · 10 January 2007]

This movie is a metaphor for the life of a person seeking spiritual liberation, meditating in retreat, and finally overcoming his ego and uniting his soul with God (or his supreme self, Atman).

The old man is the ego. The girl is the soul. The ocean is the world. The boat is the physical body. The guests that come fishing are the thoughts. The bow is the consciousness. The young man is the supreme Self, Atman.

The act of shooting the arrow from the bow is the act of meditation, an act where the consciousness is perfected, united and becomes an unstoppable power.

The dual functions of the bow - as a weapon that has an overwhelming power yet it is also an instrument of art and beauty - represent the two aspects of the consciousness - Cit and Ananda, Cit = consciousness (arrow) and Ananda = beatitude (music).

The way the old man was protecting the girl is the fight of the mind to keep the soul pure and intact. The visitors (impure thoughts) were attempting to spoil the purity of his soul while he was protecting it with the bow (his focused consciousness, or could be by a state of meditation, because in a meditation the mind becomes as focused as the arrow shot from a bow).

The fortunetelling is a meditation where the soul is providing answers to mind. The answers first appear in the soul, in a state of meditation (the shooting of the bow). Then the soul (the girl) shows the mind the answer.

The moment when the girl was rejecting the old man's hand at night is the moment when the ego is alone, separate from his soul, in a dark night of suffering that is necessary for it to understand his mistakes.

The old man's attempt to stop the girl leaving by sacrificing his life is the sacrifice of the ego that is necessary for the soul to become free. Only after the ego completely sacrifices itself, can the soul become free to discover the supreme self, Atman.

The death of the old man was the death of the dual mind and ego. The girl's orgasm is the ecstatic expansion of the soul and that marks the moment of supreme Liberation. The arrow plays the role of the consciousness that penetrates the soul and makes it expand with infinite joy into a state of union with the supreme Self - represented here by the young boy who was holding the girl.

The sinking of the boat represents the death of the physical body. The girl leaving together with the boy represents the life after the supreme Liberation, where the soul is together with the supreme Self (or with God).

preparation

[tusuz · 6/10 · 27 September 2005]

Ki-Duk Kim is one of my favorite directors. In this movie, we see reflections of Samaria and Bom yeoreum gaeul gyeoul geurigo bom. The old man is preparing the girl for the real world. Fishermen that come to boat blame the old man for keeping her in the boat for 10 years and that he wants to marry her and use her for his sexual needs. Even the girl thinks that way and starts stopping the old man from grabbing her arm in bed. But the old man knows what everybody else doesn't. He is waiting for the right time to free her. The right time is her 17th birthday. With the involvement of the young boy, old man rips the calendar pages off deciding to execute his plan earlier. Old man's spirit having sex with the girl is a part of the preparation for freedom. He frees her from her virginity.

In Samaria, father cannot stop her daughter from early age sex, gives up trying to win and protect her and leaves the daughter on her own. In Hwal, old man is successful. Ki-Duk is against early age sex but he is also against the taboo of virginity. The boat and the bow protects the girl from dangers outside just lake the house on the lake in Bom yeoreum.

In Bom Yeoreum, the student monk leaves the lake before the preparation is complete. And he returns with anger, hopelessness and blood in his hands.

In Hwal, old man does everything to stop that from happening. He scares the fishermen with his bow, stops them from touching her and finally stops the girl and the young boy from leaving before the preparation is complete by tying the rope around his neck with the other end on the moving boat.

The perfect movie

[pulp_post · 10/10 · 8 April 2010]

Hwal is probably the best film I've ever seen in my life, in the sense of being the most beautiful and complete one. The camera and photography are superb, the acting is equally outstanding, the music is adorable and the story, even though it's a simple one, talks about the most important things in life - feelings, choices and destiny.

It goes deeper than the film's length though, if we care to try to understand a bit further than its rather clear metaphors and start wondering about its cultural roots - I may be mistaken here, but I believe that I could foresee some relation with this film itself and the I-Ching oracle that we can see painted on the ship's hull.

As an object of art, I gave 10 in 10 stars to Hwal because it fulfills what cinema is meant to be, well above the conventional, mainstream films that we are flooded with these days.

Engagingly Claustrophobic

[crossbow0106 · 7/10 · 4 April 2008]

This story is about a fisherman who lives on a somewhat dilapidated fishing boat with his beautiful "grandaughter". The film pretty much takes place solely on the boat, they are never on dry land. The old man and the girl (they are never named and utter sounds but don't speak) have a special relationship, which you learn more about as the movie chugs along. The girl, who in the film is 16, is played by Yeo-reum Han who, when she smiles, is extremely beautiful. Its no wonder the few other characters, all men who pay to fish on the boat, are drawn to her. The film is good as a minimalist piece. That also means, of course, its also a little slow. I was somewhat intrigued, and the film is brave for being so focused in one place. As you see from the 7 rating, its not a great film. If you don't like minimalist films, do not watch this. I have never seen Yeo-reum Han in a film before, so I'll need to see her to see whether she is a very good actress. She is good here, as is the old man, played by Seong-hwang Jeon. You won't love it, but it will keep your interest.

Love boat

[Akihse · 8/10 · 14 September 2005]

An old man and a teenage girl live on an anchored boat somewhere out to sea. He plans to marry her at her 17th birthday. While he occasionally leaves their floating home to fetch fishing tourists she never does. Only the visitors seem to think there is something strange about the situation. The man and the girl seem happy. At first. A handsome young man who visits the boat gradually makes her question her situation, to the increasing dismay of the old man.

To me Hwal seem to be a metaphor of possessive love and moving on. On the dramatic level some things don't make sense. On the metaphorical level they do, to a greater extent anyway. When the old man shoots arrows at men who flirts or tries to paw the girl there is no police investigation or vindictive victims. This is just a way to show that jealousy makes you do stupid things that potentially can hurt others. When the boat where the old man and the girl used to live follows the boat on which the girl tries to leave with the young man, it doesn't matter that the engine is broken or that no one is driving it. Old relationships are hard to leave behind.

The downward spiral of jealousy and possessiveness are gut wrenching to watch. You just know something bad is about to happen. Love, or rather the risk of loosing it, makes you hurt each other. Accepting the loss, accepting the pain and letting go is a way out.

Just like other Kim Ki-Duk movies the pace here is tranquil, the photography is beautiful, and the main characters manage the express all the emotions they need using few or no words.

I really liked Hwal but perhaps it's not the best Kim Ki-Duk movie I've seen. The ending is a bit confusing and the theme of possessive love and the setting of a floating home are also explored in the superior Bom yeoreum gaeul gyeoul geurigo bom (2003).

Fishing for virginity, shooting for love

[wickedmikehampton · 6/10 · 15 December 2020]

Keeping company with catching up on years of movie intentions, is completionism. I'm digging into the older movies of my favourite directors.

Chang-wook Park is my easy Korean favourite but Ki-duk Kim may be second. I've watched 7 of his. 5 ranged from good to excellent whilst the two that were average were still bizarrely fascinating.

My eighth was 'The Bow' which began elegantly with an old man converting the weapon into a musical instrument, and close-up shots of a pretty woman getting her face decorated.

Like Kim's 'Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter', there's a rare sense of optimism and beauty but that's deception. All Kim's movies turn weird, and sexual or violent (or both).

'The Bow' is set entirely on a fishing boat that aims at virginity. In mood, it's a good buddy to the subtle and surreal 'Three Iron' which found lovers fading into living ghosts. Here, it's fantasy that fades...

The young girl symbolizes the human Soul, the old man - the Spirit

[vajrayogini · 10/10 · 19 March 2016]

In "The Bow" Kim Ki-Duk interprets the human state as life in a boat (the physical body) where the Spirit (old man) and the Soul (young girl) live together. The intellect (the bow) is the only tool the human being can use to connect the Spirit and the Soul. The arrow and the bow is old method of meditation and a way to re-connect the Soul and the Spirit. The bow (the Mind) can be used for protection, to play, to predict the future.... in fact it is the only instrument (weapon) human being has. When the old man plays music with the bow - this represents the internal music of the human body only the Soul can hear and understand.

In the beginning of the human life the primordial life energy is dichotomized in male and female energy (regardless gender in every human being). Christians call the male energy "Spirit", and the female "Soul". Synonyms: yang/yin, Purusha/Prakriti, Siva/Shakti, Osiris/Isis, etc. Those two kinds of life energy are absolutely real and everyone could know them by his/her own experience. The Spirit is old, immovable, conservative, caring and the Soul is always young, curious, dynamic, playful. Usually in common people the Soul is capricious and ignorant and she craves for external pleasures and the whole life energy of the body is used to know mundane things (eating, having sex, watching TV, voting, etc.)- this way no energy is left for the Spirit to be strong. The Spirit loves the Soul and He can't refuse her anything. If the Spirit is strong He guards the Soul, he plays with her, he nourishes her until She is ready for the hierogamy (alchemical marriage). In order to achieve hierogamy the Soul must be virgin meaning that she MUST love only the Spirit, and NOT to crave for mundane things. If the Soul is more interested to know the music from outwards world (symbolized by the Walkman)the Spirit will leave her (the old man dived into the water) and the body will die like the body of common mortal person (the boat sinks). The Spirit and the Soul are connected with a tiny thread (symbolized by the rope). When the Soul prefers to leave the Spirit in order to enjoy the mundane things (to know good and evil) the Spirit feels deep pain and He is wishing to kill Himself. If the Soul is willing to return, the Spirit is the happiest ever.

I believe in the end of "The Bow" Kim Ki-Duk tells us the sad story when the alchemical marriage is inhibited - the Spirit leaves the body (the boat) and the Soul descends into the mundane (she stays with the young boy).

"The same procedure as every year, James..."

[dazzling-niam · 6/10 · 4 August 2006]

An elderly fisherman lives with a young girl, he wants to marry on her 17th birthday. But shortly before that day the girl falls in love with some student and that ultimately leads to problems in the relationship between her and the old fisherman.

In beautiful pictures the movie reflects on the dialectics of refuge and prison, tenderness and sadism, love and violence. The 12th Kim Ki-duk-picture comes up with the same metaphors and symbolisms his older films were filled with, which (at least for me, as I've seen all of Ki-duk's works)leads to a déjà-vu-like experience and therefore to slight boredom.

Rating: 6 out of 10

love boat

[fnorful · 5/10 · 12 April 2006]

Having seen (and absolutely loved) Kim Ki-Duk's Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter and Spring this was a must-see at the Cleveland Int'l Film Festival this year.

Alas, it's just not magical enough.

I liked that the Old Man and the Young Girl never had dialog; it was the juxtaposition of the paying, fishing clientèle that was at odds with their relationship. As well, the use of the bow as a weapon was certainly effective, but the use of the bow as a badly-dubbed musical instrument was cheesy at best.

The plot was contrived, an ancient tale sent in contemporary times, uselessly introducing an anachronistic element into the plot line. The use of magical realism was spare and poorly timed, not being acceptable as a shift from the mostly concrete concerns and sensibilities of the rest of the movie.

This was a movie that got more and more disappointing as I watched it. The advice of more broadly-schooled Kim Ki-Duk fans would be good to follow: look for his "masterpieces", not this or other "more mainstream works".

An arrow full of mysterious power.

[FilmCriticLalitRao · 6/10 · 5 July 2007]

Kim Ki Duk is the only filmmaker in the realm of world cinema who does not like to repeat himself. There is no story/idea/topic/theme worth human consideration which he has not directed. This is the reason why his films continue to hit us hard on our fragile brains. Hwal is one such film which captivates us for varied reasons. First of all most of the filmmakers have been rather circumspect while dealing with stories featuring an old person in love with a young person. This is not true of Kim Ki Duk. He has brought immense freshness to this theme as in Hwal there is an old man in a boat somewhere in the sea who loves his young girl friend with a view to marry her. His love is unique as it is more of a love based on dedication rather than lust. However in the course of time feelings change and a different reality emerges. This change of emotional events has been deftly handled by Kim Ki Duk as the film ends on a very abstruse note. The best lesson that can be learned from this film is to ruminate over the fact: why two people cannot love each other if they are not of the same age ?

A shot of the weapon that inspired the film's title

[info-2513 · 10/10 · 6 September 2005]

The story centers around a man in his sixties who has been raising a young girl since childhood on a ship that floats unanchored off Korea's western coast. Though the borders of her world are obviously quite limited, she seems happy, and the old man plans to marry her the day she reaches legal age. The two make their living by hosting fishermen aboard the boat, and also tell fortunes in a rather bizarre and dangerous fashion, by shooting arrows whizzing past the girl's head into a Buddhist painting on the side of the boat. (This method of fortune-telling appears to have been invented by Kim, though possibly inspired by the common practice of dropping a dart onto a spinning disc)

The film opens in striking fashion with a shot of the weapon that inspired the film's title. When fitted with an additional piece, the bow becomes a stringed instrument. Sadly, however, the instrument doesn't fit into the film's plot beyond providing for occasional mood music. The bow is utilized more often as a means of fending off lecherous fisherman from the young girl, who braves the dead of winter in a flimsy dress, and who (like all the women in Kim's films) is pretty gorgeous. Soon, however, a sensitive male college student shows up on board, and the old man discovers he's going to need more than a bow if he wants to keep the delectable young thing for himself.

One of Kim's most common approaches to storytelling is to set up an isolated or marginalized world (usually a physical space, but sometimes a way of life like in 3-Iron) that operates by its own elaborate set of rules and customs. Examples include the red-light district in Bad Guy, the lake in The Isle, the motel in Birdcage Inn, or the floating temple in Spring, Summer, etc... Part of the pleasure in watching his films comes in exploring and coming to understand these worlds and how they operate. For example, in The Bow we are shown how the girl and the old man defend themselves in a series of repeated scenes. First we are shown the man's skill with the bow, then we see how the girl's spatial knowledge of the boat and archery skills can serve as a second layer of defense. These scenes don't really add much depth to the human characters, but they characterize the "society" of the boat itself.

This is compounded by the fact that the two main characters do not speak to each other. It's true that one of Kim's strengths is to be able to tell stories using very little dialogue. The lack of dialogue between the leads in The Isle and 3-Iron worked well because these couples could communicate with each other emotionally, and the absence of words only accentuated their strange bond. However, in The Bow the old man and the girl spend much of the film growing emotionally more detached. Since they don't talk, the only way left for them to communicate is to trade angry stares, which they do, over and over and over again. In this way, the lack of dialogue comes across feeling more like a gimmick than an integral part of the film.

A Nutshell Review: The Bow

[DICK STEEL · 7/10 · 15 September 2005]

An old man living on a boat together with a nubile teenage girl, is bound to set tongues wagging. There's nothing dirty about the relationship. He picked her up when she was 10, and looked after her onboard ever since. She has never left the boat; the outside world is unknown to her.

Making a living by ferrying anglers to fish on board his boat in the deep blue sea, the old man is jealously guards his lover from potential lechers. It's a difficult thing to do, considering the girl prances around the ship in skimpy flimsy dresses. Sideline income stems from his ability to tell fortunes in a bizarre manner, well, actually it's the girl who tells the fortunes. Riding a swing at the side of the boat, she smiles sweetly at the old man, while he, from afar in another boat, fires 3 arrows onto a picture of Buddha. She interprets from the position of the arrows (which always narrowly miss her), and whispers the fortune into the old man's ear, who in turn, whispers into the ear of the person who wants his fortune told.

As such, we do not hear the man or the girl speak at all in the film, expressing themselves through body language, eye contact, smiles and touch. The bow in the title refers to the weapon, which is used primarily to fend off, or purposely drive away, lustful men, and in quieter moments, it is adapted by the old man into a stringed musical instrument, to serenade the night away. The girl too uses the bow (and arrows) as a means of self defence.

However, things start to change when a young man joins a group of anglers to fish on board the old man's boat. Taken by the girl's beauty, and the girl by never seeing a young teenage lad, they get smitten with each other and a friendship begins, much to the distraught of the old man. He had plans to marry the girl when she turns 17, and hurriedly brings forward his plan, while driving the young man away.

Undetered, the young man seeks to discover the origins of the young girl, and plans to leave with her. The old man naturally goes into a fit and the relationship between him and the girl deteriorates badly into hissy tantrums from both sides.

The ending is an interesting one, as with most of Kim Ki-duk's movies. Realising that their lives are so intertwined about each other and more, the old man and the young girl consummate their union in one of the most unreal circumstances filled with ambiguous metaphors which will raise eyebrows from the audience, and the young man mirrors the reaction from any viewer, as if Ki-duk expected and saw it coming.

This was the closing film to Singapore's first Korean Film Festival, so for those interested to follow Ki-duk's movies, add this to your list. It's beautiful, though quirky, and the ending scene, quite explainable and left open to your interpretation.

Haunting

[azsara · 8/10 · 24 July 2013]

Turn the lights off, sit back and prepare for a climax of the senses.

What you are about to experience is both visually and aurally exquisite. Nothing short of a manifestation of pure emotion.

Yeo-reum Han is breathtaking in her role as a beautiful 16 year old child, bound to a boat in the middle of an ocean with her companion, 60 year old Seong-hwang Jeon. An elderly fisherman, he cares for her every need, feeds her, bathes her, and sleeps above her in an old bunk bed, desperately clutching for her hand in the middle of the night.

You will begin this film as a spectator, and you'll leave the film with a small part of your soul and heart invested in this masterpiece. Ki-duk Kim teaches us what pure love looks and sounds like, and its a realisation that will haunt you for years to come.

shouting quietness

[RResende · 26 December 2009]

You decide where you should support yourself, while you surf across the vastness of films, and art, that you try. Kim Ki Duk is one of most dear ports i seek for shelter, these days. I thought Bin Jip was transcendental in several ways. It was a sketch of love, a beautiful idea of seeing without looking, feeling without touching. It allows us to experiment in our minds, to subtract the noise of ordinary emotional pornography, and lift us to a different world. My personal experimentation of both Bin-Jip and this one was enhanced by the fact that it was a shared experience, with someone very important (bin-jip was even suggested by her).

I suppose this may be a personal question, but to me Bin Jip, having much to do with this film, tops it in every respect. And it shouldn't. I mean, this one is, in its core, much closer to what it talks about. It should be a step further, regarding the other one. Isolation, the old man and the girl completely separated while sharing the same boat, the same life, the same room! The old man doesn't touch the girl, but bathes her every night. The disturbances that overcome the quietness of the see. Metaphors, The bow, the rope. This is built out of oppositions, or better still, contradictions. But the outcome works similar to Bin-jip. The couple consummate their love when the old man disappears. The same philosophy of not touching, here achieved through a more spectacular scene, where sex is consummated, after the old man leaves to the sea.

So, this is a safe port, a beautiful journey, and if you expect nothing of it, you will get many good things. Compared to Bin Jip this is even more depurated, and all the imagery is more worked our and developed. So it works out the visual complaints i had with bin-jip. But it is less subtle, less developed, and thus, less challenging.

My opinion: 4/5

http://www.7eyes.wordpress.com

this director makes me confusing, feel hard but there is something, at least.

[jsh-12 · 7/10 · 29 October 2007]

Well. I am south Korean, now I am staying in Sweden. I watched this film with some native Swedish students and other exchange students from Western part.

Actually I was wondering that why this Korean director is so that famous especially in western countries than South Korea. It doesn't mean that this director and his films are unnamed in South Korea. He is famous as a kind of art film director, and his films are also not that failed but still his name is popular but his films are not that much, I think.

I think the reason why he is so that famous in western part of the world is that in a rough way he uses the oriental-ism.

Almost a masterpiece. However the last 10 minutes destroyed it.

[zhixiong · 9/10 · 15 August 2005]

From the award winning director, Kim Ki-duk, that gave us 'The Isle', 'Address Unknown', 'Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring', 'Samaritan Girl', '3-Iron'.

In this film 'The Bow: Hwal', the old man, the young girl and the young guy all do not have names. However the film still breezes through without identity crisis or confusion. With absolutely NO lines from the old man and the young girl, all we hear from these two characters were whispers to people's ears, laughter and crying. However, it was a masterpiece of absent dialogue. With subtle facial expressions and actions (such as aiming of the bow, striking off calendar dates, holding the girl's hand during sleep, re-construction of bed), it spoke much much louder than words. A favourite cinematic style by Kim Ki-duk.

The director, Kim Ki-duk, has also done a good job in creating unbearable suspense on what the old man whispered to the 'fortune seeking' people. I wonder if the Korean DVD will reveal these tidbits.

The music used in the film is simple yet moving. I believe the musical instrument used was Er-hu, an ancient Chinese 'violin'.

< MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD > < MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD >

In my opinion, the last 10 minutes destroyed the film. It was almost a masterpiece from Kim Ki-duk. The idea of supernatural elements and the old man's spirit having sex with the girl is too much to accept. After having sex, the old man spirit allows the girl and the guy to go back to shore while he sinks together with his ship. It was a great film without a great ending. In comparison, '3-Iron' had a stronger ending than 'The Bow'.

Mao points: 9/10

Beautiful, symbolic and emotional...

[paul_haakonsen · 8/10 · 19 May 2012]

With this epic movie, Ki-duk Kim really puts out another great story in "The Bow", and I was really surprised at the beauty of this movie.

Taking place on an old, rundown fishing boat, "The Bow" tells the story of an old man (played by Seong-hwang Jeon) who have raised a young girl (played by Yeo-reum Han) for 10 years on the boat, isolated from the outside world, with the only contact with other people is by the ones coming to the boat for fishing and having their fortune read. The old man plans to marry the girl when she becomes of age, but an unexpected spark between the girl and a visiting young man (played by Si-jeok Seo) to the boat sets things spiraling out the old man's control.

Something amazing about "The Bow" was the way that the story takes you through a myriad of emotions, ranging from admiration, curiosity and then on to spite and contempt. And the story was told (and shot) in a way that the emotions of both the old man and young girl were strong and ever-present.

Shot almost without any dialogue, the story was relying heavily on the acting performances of the cast and the ability to tell a story by the director. And wow, it just came together like pieces in a puzzle. Everything was so amazing and worked out quite nicely. The actors did great jobs with their roles, both the speaking and non-speaking roles. But most impressively was Seong-hwang Jeon (the old man) and Yeo-reum Han (the young girl) in their roles. Wow, the chemistry between them on the screen was amazing, and the way they portrayed their characters made it like you were right there on the boat with them.

"The Bow" was really a treat for the eyes to sit down and watch, because the cinematography was so beautiful. The movie is really nicely shot, with lots of great shots, and that was really a necessary ingredient for the movie, being able to portray and tell a story when there wasn't all that much dialogue going on.

I found the movie to be a really great surprise, and I loved how it swept me up and put me right there in the story. It was so compelling and beautiful. And if you are a fan of Asian cinema, then surely you are familiar with Ki-duk Kim's work already. But if not, then "The Bow" is well worth putting into your DVD player and sit down to watch. It is the type of story that will stay with you for a long time.

I was not ready for this man's genius.

[DionysoReal · 7/10 · 29 September 2006]

I must confess I don't get a lot of his films but I adored "Spring, Summer Fall, Winter and Spring again". Now I see that this man just comes from a different place with his stories. He is not trying to be commercial. He is brave enough to make some weird stuff but without formulaic endings and feel good clichés. The man is stretching the boundaries of our perception and disturbing our sensibilities enough to make us remember what we just saw whether we liked it or not. For that I give him his due.

Hwal is another zen story in my eyes but with a bit of Shamanism as well. The imagery is once again luscious with Buddhism and nature with beautiful Korean traditional wedding costumes also. The old man and young girl thing disturbed me to no end but that was the intent. There was something sincerely loving between them even though one's moral sensibilities are assaulted from the get go. As the young man enters the picture in what would seem a more appropriate love interest the conflict begins. Just as things start to seem to turn normal the magic begins and the spiritual enters the mundane like an old Korean fairy tale.

The arrow misses its mark

[ccscd212 · 4/10 · 26 July 2006]

Having seen almost all of Kim Ki-Duk's movies, I will say that this one is easily among his weakest. What goes wrong then? I'll start with the good. The old man's acting is pretty fine-- the girl's acting is a bit more capricious, but usually not annoyingly so. The cinematography is passable, but nothing fancy. The part where the old man plays his bow/ violin on the roof of the boat, however, belongs in a tourism video promoting the wonders of South-Korea, not a Kim Ki-Duk film. The music is cheesy. It's never a good decision to have an actor play a rugged instrument on screen and simultaneously play polished, incredibly melodramatic music on the sound track.

With the technicalities out of the way, let's focus on the story. As far as Kim Ki-Duk goes, the main idea could've been workable. Now it just takes some elements from 'The Isle,' adds some painfully obvious and overdone symbolism plus some magical realism at the end that makes me think that Kim Ki-Duk is having a laugh at my expense. The bow as a symbol of love-- acceptable, sure. It shoots arrows, too = love hurts. It can be used to play the most touching music = love is beautiful. You can use it to predict future events = love is mysterious?? Not to mention, the thing with the rooster and the hen. The type of symbolism the film contains I might expect from a romantic novelist, not a renowned director. The ending is a story in itself, but I honestly felt embarrassed for Kim Ki-Duk while I watched it. Should it have ended with the old man diving in the sea, I would've probably viewed the film in a much more positive light.

Sure there are some classic Kim Ki-Duk moments like the scene with the old man and the rope and even the wedding, but overall this is very sub-par. It's still probably worth watching-- one reason being: to see what kind of sap a talented artist is able to produce apparently without flinching an eye.

The Ki-duk we know

[Leofwine_draca · 7/10 · 24 November 2020]

THE BOW is another intriguing, superbly artistic and small-scale drama from auteur Kim Ki-duk, one of my favourite directors of all time. This has similarities in plot to classics like SPRING, SUMMER, AUTUMN, WINTER...AND SPRING and THE ISLE, but overall tells a story that is more gentle and more romantic. Essentially it's a love triangle on a fishing boat, with barely any dialogue, but Ki-duk uses the sparse plot elements to create something impossibly deep, sometimes profound, and very beautiful. The performances are spot on, particularly from the young actress who has so much on her shoulders, and the whole film is a visual treat.

Coping with unmatched expectations

[oOgiandujaOo_and_Eddy_Merckx · 8/10 · 20 January 2011]

Hwal / The Bow is a very rich movie for those interested in Buddhism however in cinematic terms there are some fairly substantial and overt structural problems with the movie. For example the film starts with a jolt of clumsy expositional dialogue (this is where characters have a very forced conversation that reveals the back story of the movie). Motifs are over-repeated (shooting of arrows) and non-sourced / non-diegetic music is layered on every time the old man starts to play his bow, all the worse because it is fairly saccharine.

Those with a yen for Buddhist films are however living on food parcels and so the film's flaws may be overlooked in kindness to the healing the film provides and the thoughts it provokes.

The plot of the movie concerns an old man who lives out on the sea on a fishing boat. He provides divination services and also a platform for line fishing. Customers sit on pastel-coloured sofas and ease away the day. He has spent a decade bringing up a young foundling girl and intends the unnatural act of marrying her when she reaches age.

To me one of the key points of Buddhism is that if you are angry with the world, there are two ways to proceed, change the world or change your attitude to it, the latter is the more likely to work. Another idea would be to be like the smooth stone in a river, over which the world flows softly, rather than the jagged cause of turbulence. Dukkha (a catch-all concept of suffering that has no direct translation to English) is minimised by the changing of the self. One facet of dukkha is viparinama-dukkha, which concerns the pain of unmet expectations and the pain caused by the impermanence of happiness. The old man in the movie suffers from this and has to learn to deal with it.

I found myself accepting unpalatable truths about my life watching this movie and salvaged a couple of evenings of calm from it. I would recommend it to those seeking to do likewise. One point to raise is that Kim is not averse to animal cruelty in his movies, in this one a chicken receives several deliberate blows from a character.

Others have pointed to the entire movie being composed of symbols, this is a particularly beautiful alternative way of looking at the movie, although it amounts to much the same take home in the end.

This is to my friend Mollie.