Written by: Ki-duk Kim
Directed by: Ki-duk Kim
Starring: Seung-yeon Lee, Hyun-Kyoon Lee, Hyuk-ho Kwon
Rated: R
Watch the trailer
Plot
A man breaks into homes pretending to live in the victims' homes while they're on vacation
Verdict
This is quiet, haunting, and imaginative. It tells such a complete story with very little dialog, and you almost don't notice. The story is strange and only gets stranger. I didn't get the ending even after scouring the internet for any theories. I've come to my own theory, as taking this movie at only face value isn't satisfying.
It depends.
Review
Ki-duk Kim also did one of my favorite movies Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring (2003). That was a quiet, melodic movie and 3-Iron is another simple story.
I don't know why Tae-suk breaks into houses. Is it fantasy, to live vicariously, or just voyeurism? He uses the victims' shower, wears their clothes, but also does their laundry and does repairs. With just him in the house, it's calm and serene. When the family returns he quickly escapes, but the family is upset and arguing. Was it a commentary on Tae-suk being thankful and the family taking their fortune for granted?
So many movies use dialog as exposition and still can't tell a clear story. This movie tells a story with so little dialog, but it's never confusing. It is odd though. Tae-suk breaks into the home of an abused woman, Sun-hwa. She spies on him, but he stays. When the husband returns Tae-suk saves Sun-hwa and they ride away. Their relationship is completely silent. He continues to break into and stay at random houses, now with a partner.
They are eventually caught and Sun-hwa is back with her husband and Tae-suk is put in prison. He becomes good at sneaking, able to hide in plain sight. He was figuratively invisible before, now he is almost literally invisible. After his release Tae-suk revisits the homes he had broken into, now with the families inside of them. They never see him and he returns to Sun-hwa's house.
She lives with two men. Her husband who now thinks he is making his wife happy, while really she's happy Tae-suk is there. He lives unseen in the house. In an amazing or ludicrous scene Sun-hwa hugs or husband while kissing Tae-suk.
This movie ended and I felt like I had missed the point. The final image is the quote, "It's hard to tell that the world we live in is either a reality or a dream." What parts of this movie were a dream and what was real? When both Tae-suk and Sun-hwa were on a bathroom scale it read zero.
Tae-suk being a ghost or dead or this being a fantasy movie seems like an easy cop out solution. I searched the internet for theories but found nothing.
I finally settled on the following interpretation. I don't know the movie's intent, but this is the theory I made up. Sun-hwa is the main character and Tae-suk is a figure she imagined. She imagined living in other house, any home but her own as an escape. When things got so bad she met this imagined figure and he saved her from her abusive marriage. It could be she was in the hospital due to injuries, and when she returned home Tae-suk went to jail. Then she imagined him silently living in her house to save her from complete misery and to make her life bearable. To take this movie at purely face value seems too simple.
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