Movies - Bad Guy

Home > Listing Index > Movies > Bad Guy (film)

	Movies - Bad Guy

Bad Guy (2001) is a South Korean film by director Kim Ki-duk about a man who traps a woman into prostitution, then becomes protective of her. The film was controversial for its frank portryal of gangsters, prostitution, and sexual slavery, but also was a minor box office hit as its release coincided with a burgeoning audience interest in its male lead and director.

Plot

A young couple are sitting on a bench when a threatening, mute man begins to harass the woman. He punches the woman's boyfriend and forcefully kisses her until he is restrained by the crowd and some police. The woman insults him, spits on him, and demands an apology, but he remains silent.

Later, the woman is shopping in a bookstore where we see her tear a page from an art book she cannot afford to buy. She notices a wallet left on the shelf and furtively tucks it into her purse, not knowing that it was planted by an associate of the man who harassed her. As she leaves the store she is accosted by the associate who demands his wallet, claiming it had 10 million won (the rough equivalent of $10,000) in it. As the money was never there she is unable to give it to him, and he proposes a solution -- prostitution. Seeing no alternative to escaping the debt and time in jail, she relucantly agrees.

He takes her to a gangster where she signs a contract agreeing to work as a prostitute to pay her debt, which has now increased to $15,000. She is taken to the small brothel where she is to work, never leaving until her debt is paid. She must purchase her clothes, wigs, and food from the madam, virtually ensuring she can never earn enough money.

Adjustment to her new life is hard; the madam hits her and customers become violent. The mute man, a local enforcer, watches her through the one-way mirror installed in her room. Though we are not privy to his thoughts, it appears that he begins to have romantic feelings for her. He tries to have sex with her but she recognizes him and attacks him, realizing that he is the one who trapped her in this life. She asks the madam for permission to see her boyfriend so that she can give her virginity to him, but the mute man attacks the boyfriend in their car.

One of the mute man's flunkies also develops a crush on the woman, paying to sleep with her and apologizing for ruining her life. She convinces him to help her escape, promising to marry him; that night he pulls the iron bars from her window and she sneaks away. Her freedom is short-lived, however, as the mute man finds her in front of her parents' home and seizes her, taking her back to the brothel. First, though, he takes her to a beach, where they witness a woman committing suicide by drowning. In the sand the woman finds a torn-up photograph.

Back in the brothel the woman reconstructs the photo, taping it to her mirror; she has all of the pieces except the faces of the couple it depicts.

An attack by a rival nearly kills the mute man, but when he returns from the hospital he forbids any retaliation. One of his man kills his attacker anyway; he confesses to the police to save the man from certain execution. But the man for whom he has taken a fall is consumed by guilt and commits a crime so that he can be sent to the same prison. On the scheduled day of execution he escapes from his cell, finds the mute man, and confesses everything to the guards, winning his boss' release.

Eventually the woman realizes thats he is being spied upon in her room, smashing the mirror to reveal the mute man. He pays the debt of the woman and she decides to stay with him, selling herself to fishermen in the back of a truck to earn them money.

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Bad Guy (film) ]

This page is based on the copyrighted Wikipedia article Bad Guy (film); it is used under the GNU Free Documentation License. You may redistribute it, verbatim or modified, providing that you comply with the terms of the GFDL.

Searches on eBay