"Bad Guy (Nabbeun namja)" is an earlier film of Ki-duk Kim that is probably being released now in the U.S. due to the success of "Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring (Bom yeoreum gaeul gyeoul geurigo bom)," but fans of that visually entrancing parable should be warned how very different this exploration of the depths of human nature is.

The style has some similarity in that there is no exposition and we have to connect images that tell a tale of two very different people over time. Context is everything as voyeurism keeps repeating along a sexual spectrum of men and women together -- to romantic or erotic or degrading or lustful or violent, full of obsession or love or hate or longing or disgust, whether in prostitution, a relationship, or rape.

A key context is emotions and degrees, whether by the man or woman, or mutual, or drained of feeling such that I'm not sure love has any meaning in this film. There's a recurring use of Egon Schiele's erotic art to make some kind of comparative point about a continuum of sexual images and their effect on the viewer.

The titular character is reminiscent of Quasimodo of "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" fixating on Esmeralda if he were a psychopathic pimp in, I presume, Seoul's lurid red light district and played by the charismatic Jae-hyeon Jo, like an apolitical "Romper Stomper." I did get a little lost where he fit into the hierarchy of the yakuza-like gangster organization that controls the district, how much authority he has, and who was on top of whom to interpret their obsessions. Some of the encounters we see are presumably his limited fantasies as he miraculously recovers from various violently noble efforts to protect and reach out to the object of his affection that reminded me of the ambiguous ending of Jane Campion's "The Piano."

The film explores some of the same territory as the work of Catherine Breillat, but the context seems uneasily different when I'm the only woman in the theater and the director is male, perhaps because the central woman is always an object, even as she pitifully adapts to her various degradations, and even resists being freed from them. All the women in the film treat each other like the men treat them.

I LOVE it when I find a new director who instantly appeals to me. Kim Ki-duk is my latest find; this is my third film of his, after SPRING, SUMMER, AUTUMN, WINTER...AND SPRING and THE ISLE, and it's just as engrossing and thought-provoking as those previous films. Yes, the subject matter might just be too dark and off-putting for some viewers, but nonetheless this is an expertly crafted South Korean drama.

The storyline is deceptively simple, as in the director's other films: a low-life street thug becomes obsessed with a beautiful young woman, who rejects him. He decides to punish her by forcing her - through a set-up crime which leads to her being in debt to her - into becoming a prostitute. This is merely the beginning of the story, however, which focuses on the unusual developing relationship between the pair.

BAD GUY is a slow moving film in which building scenes of simmering tension are shattered by bursts of sudden, harsh violence. It's a realistic movie that pulls no punches and is all the more effective thanks to the outstanding acting of Cho Jae-hyun as the thug and Seo Won as the broken woman. It's amazing that you don't end up despising the "bad guy" of the title despite his misogyny and crimes towards women and that despite all the depressing scenes this is somehow never a downbeat movie, just a very good one. I literally couldn't take my eyes off the screen...

I loved Korean director Ki-duk Kim's The Isle, and this film is just as good. It may not be to everyone's taste as it is a dark film about obsession.

Han-ki (Jae-hyeon Jo) is a hood. We never really know how important he is, but he does run a brothel. He becomes obsessed with a beautiful college student, Sun-hwa (Won Seo),who rejects and disses him. He can't rise to her level, so he will bring her down to his.

He sets her up and forces her to borrow from a loan shark to get out of trouble. When she can't pay, she is brought into the brothel. He watches her humiliation from behind a two-way mirror.

Many weeks/months/years later, after Han-Ki goes to jail, one of his men offers to let her go. She realizes she cannot return to her former life. She stays.

The ending took a couple of twists and turns and ended up in a totally unexpected place. Brilliant!