3-Iron

2004 "Nothing is what it appears to be."
7.9| 1h28m| NA| en| More Info
Released: 15 October 2004 Released
Producted By: Kim Ki Duk Film
Country: South Korea
Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
Official Website:
Info

A young man, whose only possession is a motorcycle, spends his time riding around the city looking for empty apartments. After finding one, he hangs out for a while, fixing himself something to eat, washing laundry or making small repairs in return. He always tries to leave before the owners get back but in one ostensibly empty mansion he meets the abused wife of a rich man and she escapes with him.

Genre

Drama, Crime, Romance

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Director

Kim Ki-duk

Production Companies

Kim Ki Duk Film

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3-Iron Audience Reviews

SnoReptilePlenty Memorable, crazy movie
AutCuddly Great movie! If you want to be entertained and have a few good laughs, see this movie. The music is also very good,
Fairaher The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.
Haven Kaycee It is encouraging that the film ends so strongly.Otherwise, it wouldn't have been a particularly memorable film
sir-mauri 3-Iron (빈집, Bin-jip, meaning Empty House) is a 2004 Korean film directed by Kim Ki-duk, a South Korean filmmaker noted for his idiosyncratic "art-house" cinematic works. The plot revolves around the relationship between a young drifter and an abused housewife. The film is notable for the lack of dialogue between its two main characters. Film review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reported that 86% of reviewers (75 out of 87) gave the film positive ratings with an average score of 7.4. The film grossed $241,914 in North America and $2,965,315 worldwide. A haunting love tale full of poeticism and beauty. A film that transcends fantasy and reality, instead offering an uncanny blur between the two. 3-Iron is a film dripping with love, longing and anguish. A fantastic romantic fable from Kim Ki-Duk.
grandmastersik An intelligent young man who suddenly stopped talking, dropped out of society and somehow has an infinite supply of leaflets, breaks into people's homes and spends the night, washing their clothes in return, like a the pixies who visited the Shoemaker.One day the "mute" comes across a sad and desperate woman whose husband beats and controls her. After spying on their lives for a while, the insane "hero" slugs a few golf balls into the husband with a 3 Iron club (hence the film's title - ooh, isn't that clever?) and the wife runs away with him to travel on his motorcycle (which runs on infinite fuel, since he doesn't have any income whatsoever and never steals) and together they break into houses and take selfies.And that's pretty much the plot.Towards the end we're "treated" to some completely ridiculous changes in character as the two leads seem to go mad... or is it us? After all, what is life but a dream?Sigh. Honestly, the first hour's a good art-house flick but the rest is nonsense that insults anyone with real intelligence, leaving only sad, film buff nerds who think that they're smarter than they are to swear the film's excellence, because they had the patience to sit through it (yet turn "crap" like Transformers off after 5 minutes).
billcr12 3-iron is the name of a golf club, which in this case applies to a main component of story here. A young man on a motorcycle rides around and leaves a notice on various doorknobs, and then returns later to find out who is not at home. He picks the locks and takes up residence; cooking, cleaning clothes, bathing, and just making himself at home. At one home, he meets an abused young woman living in a bad marriage. They ride off together; Bonnie and Clyde like, and make home wherever they may land. The woman never speaks, and neither does the man. They are both excellent; relying on facial expressions and body movement to portray emotion. The ending is rather abrupt, but at least 3-Iron will keep you guessing, and its dream like quality is a good enough reason to recommend this unusual film.
pontifikator This is the first film I've seen by director Kim Ki-duk, and I'll put it in the "Magic Realism" genre. The movie stars Lee Seung-yeon as our hero, Jae Hee as our heroine. As far as I can remember, the characters they play never say a word to each other until the final scene.Lee's character (Sun-hwa) is apparently homeless; he posts take-out menus on doors then circulates back to see which doors still have the menus on them the next day. He picks the locks of supposedly vacant homes or apartments and spends a night or two -- he listens to the answering machine to see if people have said they'll be away. While he's there, he fixes whatever is broken and does the people's laundry. He finds one apparently vacant home in a very well-to-do neighborhood and breaks in. He wanders through the home, finds that the scales need to be repaired, does so, and plays some golf in the backyard before noticing that the home is indeed occupied. It turns out the owner is away on business, but his wife (named Tae-suk) remains; she shows the bruises and busted lip of their last discussion. She's a prisoner in her own home, and our young hero is a free-spirit with no home. It's a match made in heaven. The title of the movie comes from the 3 iron that Sun-hwa finds in the home occupied by Tae- suk and her beater. The husband comes home early, takes her to task for not answering his phone calls, and discovers Sun-hwa lurking in the back yard. Sun-hwa takes the 3 iron and drives several golf balls into the husband, knocking him down; Sun-hwa and Tae-suk make their escape on his motorcycle. Our couple continues his pattern of handing out fliers, finding a vacant apartment, and staying overnight. Nothing much happens during these scenes with nothing being said, and yet we follow their meandering path with interest and feeling. Eventually someone discovers them and calls the police. The police investigate but find no evidence of any crimes, no thefts, only repairs and clean laundry. Tae-suk is returned to her husband, and Sun-hwa is sent to jail for breaking and entering where he serves a short sentence.Now is where the magic realism comes in to play. Sun-hwa hides from his jailer, causing the jailer to beat him and threaten to kill him. Sun-hwa becomes better and better at hiding, becoming capable of standing behind the jailer out of his view no matter how the jailer twists and turns. Eventually, he becomes invisible to the jailer. The jailer constantly threatens Sun- hwa with death and beats him each time. When it comes time to release Sun-hwa, he is escorted down a tunnel to a light at the end of the tunnel. Apparently Sun-hwa revisits each of the places he stayed with Tae-suk; I say apparently because there is evidence of his ghostly presence, but neither we nor the occupants ever see him, although the occupants are aware of a presence. He goes to Tae-suk's home, and while her husband can't see him hiding behind him, Tae-suk does see Sun-hwa and tells him she loves him. Her husband is shocked and pleased because he assumes she's addressing him. Tae-suk fixes her husband breakfast, placing bowls around him so that as he turns to one serving, Sun-hwa steals a bite from another, both husband and loved one being filled from the same offerings.The husband leaves, and we see the lovers embrace, standing on a scale that reads zero.We saw Sun-hwa fix the scale earlier. If we paid attention, we know his weight shown before he fixed it, his weight after he fixed it, and her weight after he fixed it. We saw Tae-suk take the scale apart after she was returned to her husband, so she may have restored it to its former error, and we know their combined weight would take the broken scale back to zero if they both stood on it. So we can imagine that the unrepaired the scale and their combined weights plus the error is the 180 kilos which takes us back to zero. Or we can imagine that the yin and yang of their love is weightless. Or we can imagine that he was beaten to death in prison and that he is, indeed, a ghost whose spirit lifts her body so that it, too, is weightless. It's an interesting film with a spiritualism that is not heavy-handed.Because of the ending, we get to fill the movie with meanings and emotions of our own. Of the places they stayed, only one couple was happy, and they both return to it separately to spend some time again. It's an easy movie to put meaning into as we see the empty apartments and lives of others in Seoul. It's a fascinating and interesting love story.The version of the movie that I saw is rated R in American. This is a travesty. There is no nudity, and there is no sex. Apparently two scenes caused the MPAA to lose its mind: in one scene we see him under a sheet looking at a book of photographs with a nude model; his hand is jerking back and forth under the sheet, so we assume he's masturbating. In another scene after Tae- suk was returned to her husband, we see them get into bed, both in pajamas. Her husband puts his hand under the sheet and demands to know if "he touched you there." Our assumption is that he's asking if she's had sex with Sun-hwa. Why this deserved an R is a mystery to me.