Hard to watch, hard not to watch

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By John DeFore
Special to the American-Statesman

Posted: March 4, 2005

A disturbing fable of romantic obsession, "Bad Guy" offers a brute willing to force a girl into prostitution, then encourages us to sympathize with him -- and to accept it when, eventually, the girl forms a sad bond with her enslaver.

From South Korean filmmaker Ki-duk Kim ("Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter . . . and Spring"), the tale challenges more than our moral flexibility. It grows increasingly ambiguous near the end, with abrupt leaps in chronology and a resolution that invites conflicting interpretations.

Until that point, "Bad Guy" is a patient and unflinching study of Han-Gi, a red-light-district enforcer whose fixation on an innocent-seeming girl goes beyond mere greed or lust, and Sun-hwa, the girl who puts up surprisingly little resistance to her enforced prostitution.

Naturally, the film contains some graphic scenes of rape and brutality. But they're juxtaposed with sequences in which Han-Gi's obsession with Sun-hwa (he spies on her through a two-way mirror in the brothel) is accompanied by gentle ballads on the soundtrack, as if he were a helpless victim of unrequited love. The lead actors are just compelling enough to draw one into this unfriendly story, and Ki-duk Kim's fine-tuned imagery and pacing keep us interested even when his characters' motivations are completely baffling.