#22 3-Iron

Just for the thrill


3-Iron is Kim Ki-duk's take on the bergening genre Wong Kar Wai sent into popular cinema with Chungking Express- stories of lonely, new adults who find their place in the world through the secretive tampering of other people's possesions.  While Kar Wai's contributions to this cannon are both the most realized, Kim Ki-duk's 2004 picture is more useful than 2001's Amelie.
Fantasy film's prior to the 1990's consistantly make the characters of the film retreat, or fall into the film's fantasy trope (Wizard of Oz, Celine and Julie Go Boating).  Now characters from these fantasy films come to live in the real-life.  Or rather characters who have seen too many fanstasy pictures are forced to live on their own. Therefore, they act as if they themselves are being filmed- which they are.  The director's camera acts like the camera the characters imagine there themselves- the camera of their fantasies. They act as if they know the excitement of the film is about to begin, and respond to it, not in a manner to benefit themselves but rahter to further the film.  These characters sneak into other people's homes, the fear of being caught is half put-on, becaus they know the act of being exposed is the next step in furthering their story. 
Kim Ki-duk is able to manage this with minimal cuteness.  Amelie is cute with no romance, but 3-Iron is a romance able to sacrifice its adorablitly for the luster of the relationship.  Instead of nymphially, stalking prospective lovers and then playing with their belongings, Ki-duk's character seeks out belongings for the traces of humans.  When his nightly excursions find him witness to a man beating his wife, he steals the girl and continues to play the games he played before finding a love.  This is the true sadness of all of these films.  Not that the characters are alone and unwilling to interact with the object of their desire, but because the characters believe themselves to be so charming that their desired one would enjoy their scheming.  They are movies about people who are oblivious to what makes them worth spending time with.