3-IRON

If Korean director Kim Ki-Duk’s last film, a Buddhistic Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter...and Spring, brought him to a wider film audience, then this magical, mysterious film should gain him further converts, even if it is a little gimmick-ridden around the edges.
Using tricks of the trade more akin to horror than a romantic drama (sudden cuts, tension-ridden scenes, vaguely-placed point-of-view shots, etc), his knowledge of audio in cinema makes this film more sonically intense.
The result? 3-Iron is an almost silent film about two lovers who don’t actually converse. Other characters do say a few words, however, and while that relieves the pooling silence their words are often cruder than we may expect, especially when juxtaposed with beautiful, articulate silence. Terribly, cloyingly sentimental at times, the strongest point of this story is that love and silence are often surrounded by the less enchanted parts of life.
3 Iron is a gem – elegiac, puzzling yet hanging together with a seen visual magic.