The Truly Amazing LEODO

 Is the lure of the sea as strong as the lure of women for men? I think so -- speaking for myself, anyway. Men become prey to women the longer they swim in their arms. They can become more idiotic, too, surrendering principles, standards, and boundaries they once clung to.

Possibly the hardest film I've ever felt compelled to write about is Kim Ki Young's Leodo, an impossible to categorize meditation on Men and their relationship to Women. Although the drama is intimate, it's addressing broad, fascinating issues such as religion, fertility, mortality, environmental pollution, and mythology. Threaded through that heady brew is a sweeping existential adventure on par, and having much in common with, Robin Hardy's film of Anthony Shaffer's The Wicker Man.

Legend has it that Leodo is an island where the souls of drowning men are carried to safety. It can't be seen unless you're wrestling with death. The women of Parang Island, a mountainous, anti-Shangri-La, live in the strangling grip of old beliefs and irrational fears. A few desperate men, pathetic fellows all, venture to Parang to live off the women in exchange for seminal donations. All but one of the women -- a lithe, stunning beauty --  is past her child bearing years, so her nights are filled with fertility rituals that culminate in necrophilia, madness, and their accompanying pleasures.

As simple as this description sounds, Leodo, made in '76 but released in '80,  is anything but. There are plots within plots and flashbacks within flashbacks.  Mr. Young, a profoundly underrated and fascinating filmmaker, whose The Housemaid was recently remade in Korea, made several films that defy explanation. Works like Leoda possess a directness, a lack of compromise, a raw originality that tastes like honey to palettes dulled by calculated Hollywood fare. Young has no concern that Leodo will or won't be accepted by audiences. He doesn't care. It will find an audience. The audience will find it. It is this brave approach to the material that makes Leodo so amazing.

Having just made a movie (fertISLE) on an isolated island myself, today's re-viewing of Leoda cemented my resolve to move forward with pure, untethered intention on future projects of similar financial design.  A low budget is high license, an open door through which to step on grounds of choice with shoes not heavied by false expectations. Leodo feels and lingers like raw experience, its ocean vistas haunted, its couplings like sad Bacon sketches, its emotions raw and red like freshly stabbed flesh.

Based on a novel called Keum Byeong Mae by Lee Cheong-joon, Leodo was substantially rewritten by the director to incorporate a premise in which a developer is using the mythical island of Leoda as a marketing tool. On a ferry ride to neighboring Parong, there is an altercation between an executive of the company and an ex-islander. Thus results in the disappearance of the islander and a murder accusation. The accused, not charged, travels to Parong with a newspaper reporter to find the missing man.

 

Poster for the director's The Housemaid; I looked high and low for Leodo poster art,
but I came up empty-handed. If you find any, let me know, please.

In the majority of Young's movies, men are portrayed as poor, helpless devils, unable to control their primitive urges. The pleasures they pursue are portrayed as the overrated fantasies they actually are, mindless pursuits just as easily achieved with a bout of intense masturbation. "Prey for Queen Bees," is how one Korean critic described the status of Leoda's unfortunate males.

What Leodo explores in grand style is a concubine-like social structure that is torn apart by its lack of rules.  It's too casual, lacking perhaps the fascist discipline required to support and contain such a structure. Although the regressive desire to crawl into a woman's womb and die permeates proceedings, even these poor souls with penises are unable to get it right, so steered off course are they by the demon ego.

Leodo is part of the four-film Kim Ki Young Collection, a stunning set also featuring the films The Insect Woman (72), Goryeojang ('63), and Promise of the Flesh ('75).

The director died horribly in '98. He was burnt to death in a house fire. 

Bedevilled a Korean 'The Beasts'

 Talk about a film with its heart in the right place! Jesus. This shoots the ducks down and goes back to wring their necks.

If you've never seen Dennis Yu's The Beasts (aka Flesh and Bloody Terror; '80), you may not appreciate the virtues of this Korean sleaze- and blood-fest quite as much as I did. The Beasts, a very rough diamond,  was inspired by flicks such as I Spit On Your Grave, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Hills Have Eyes, and Deliverance.

My imdb review went thus:

There's plenty to like in Dennis Yu's vicious little shocker. You can cite many references (Deliverance being one), but my guess is Wes Craven's The Hills Have Eyes influenced Yu most.

I love stuff like this -- the nastier the better. I'm not apt to whine if the film rolls around in its own filth like a fat, bloated pig. I'm not prone to taking issue with gloriously violent, misogynistic behavior if the only reason given for it is the inherent badness of the characters.

"Entertainment" has many faces, and the face of this putrid piece of vile celluloid is slashed with a shit-eating grin.

In The Hills Have Eyes, Craven used the deformed Michael Berryman as the face of savagery. In The  Beasts, Yu casts an equally disturbing, ugly, toothless actor who grunts and screams and lashes out at every obstacle like a venomous snake. He perfectly embodies Yu's vile little world.

A small party of men and cute women are attacked by some local miscreants ("beasts"). One of the women is brutally raped and the police are called. The miscreants, referred to as "disco boys" by one observer, are rounded up by the inept cops, but the cops fail to make a case against them. A local man, upset that justice has not been served, decides to exact his own -- in deep scarlet.

Although some of the film's scenes of graphic violence are a little sloppy, there are enough cinematic atrocities on parade to forgive Wu his occasional aesthetic misstep.

Again mirroring Hills, two ferocious dogs make an appearance in The Beasts -- this time, however, they're on the side of "evil".

The atmosphere of sleaze and dread is well maintained and encouraged by Yu. The climax, taking place during a vicious rainstorm (at night) is surprisingly effective and beautifully shot by Bob Thompson.

Editing is tight and Tony Au's art direction is vivid and gloriously ugly.

A murder with a rope tossed to a drowning man is a showstopper, as is a scene where a character plunges head first into a box of rusty blades.

If you have a soft spot for this disrespected genre, you'll find a place in your heart for The Beasts.

 While watching Bedevilled (2010) unspool, I was heartened by the fact that someone -- a Korean first-time director named Cheol-soo Jang -- had decided to make a film that, for me, recalled the best aspects of nasty exploitation flicks from Hong Kong's golden age.

Mr. Jang weaves other influences into this potpourri of gory nihilism also. The film's musical choices are pure Kim Ki-duk -- gentle piano pieces suggesting brewing violence. The visuals, which are very impressive, recall the vistas of Ki-duk's The Isle, his purest, most surreal work. One of the film's final images is a direct steal from that film... a woman's body becomes an island.

A little research reveals that Cheol-so Jang was second unit director on Ki-duk's Samaritan Girl. There is a distinct Ki-duk flavor to this film, and the violence (mostly directed at women) is as brutal as that seen in Ki-duk's Address Unknown, Bad Guy, and Crocodile.

Another title that this film bears many similarities to, at least thematically, is Kim Ki-young's quite extraordinary and little seen Leodo ('77), a bewitching tale of an island of mysterious women who harbor a terrible secret.  

 Leodo's focus is on a search for a missing man who lived on the island,  and the influence of a witch-like woman/shaman on the all-female island's residents. The film is so fascinating and multi-layered that I have started, deleted, and re-started numerous blog posts about it over the past couple of months. Until my words can do it some justice, I'll take a powder. Although it (Leodo) has more in common with the original The Wicker Man than Bedevilled,  I can't help suspecting that its theme did influence many aspects of Bedevilled.

The set-up is basic. 'Hae-won' (Seong-won Ji), a frustrated, somewhat selfish businesswoman, travels to the island where she grew up to spend a week with an old friend,  'Kok-nam' (Seo Yeong-hee). Kok-nam is a simple, loving, earthy woman married to a total cunt ( Yeong-hie Seo) who beats her up constantly and screws mainland prostitutes in front of her (the arrival of prostitutes by boat recalls similar scenes in The Isle).

Even worse than any of the above is the not-so-hidden secret that hubby is also screwing his daughter, a shy girl who couldn't be more than nine or ten. His heinous actions are condoned by a nasty old woman (played with chilling conviction) who is her husband's greatest supporter. This old crone virtually encourages the man's abuse and even attempts to cover it up when the worst thing you can possibly imagine happens.

 The island is home to a very small group of women who seem to accept the wholesale mistreatment of the younger woman. They share an old-fashioned view that women are useless without  men and only necessary for procreation and mothering. Although this view is somewhat at odds with the matriarchal society of Leodo, it is presented with similar visual and literary flourishes.

Bedevilled reminded me of The Beasts because its presentation of perversion and violence is just as unrelenting -- although not quite as trashy. Technically, it is a much more polished piece of work.

The brutal husband is just one of several ghastly men the film presents to us. The husband also has a brother who drugs and molests Hae-won, and there is a boat captain and cop who are equally morally bankrupt. Virtually every male in the film is a rotten sod.

Another film presenting all men as animals is Koyu Ohara's White Rose Campus... Then, Everybody Gets Raped!

Because the film is so dedicated to its bleak world view, there is little room for shading. That's fine, though; it is what it is. And director Yang does a good job slowly piling on the atrocities until the victims and audience reach a breaking point.

If I had any problems with the film, it was with the slightly protracted wrap-up that feels a bit rushed. There seemed to be some bridging shots missing that might have smoothed the transition to the last major location.

Bedevilled is a fine achievement, though, another feather in the cap of Korean cinema. Who would have thought that Korea would become the new Hong Kong of the 70's and 80's? Hats off to them! 
 

The Blu-Ray from Optimum Releasing UK presents the film beautifully.

 

A Giant Thank You To Everybody

This morning, the 109th Follower of this blog appeared. Less than twelve months ago, the blog didn't exist.

I started Phantom of Pulp because I've always had a strong desire to share my passions. I did it when I was a six year old, and I'm doing it forty years later. I'm the guy who's always driving to someone's house -- with my multi-system DVD player -- to show them an obscure movie or expose them to a bizarre book. With the internet and blogging, I figured it was time to share what electrifies me with many like-minded individuals (relatively like-minded, anyway).

I've always been attracted to the stuff you'll find on this blog. It feeds my hunger for brain food. It excites me. It fulfills me. It strokes my insatiable curiosity for everything. It makes life worth living and encourages exploration.

I didn't intend to create a horror blog or a movie blog or a book blog, and I know this doesn't fall into any of those categories. That's why I called it Phantom of Pulp. Pulp, top me, is the product of fertile, unfettered minds.

I post stuff that gets lots of feedback and no feedback at all. Reviews of current releases get quick responses. Reviews of older flicks attract comments, too.

Porno-themed posts run hot and cold, if comments are anything to go by. Porno paperbacks seem to hit the spot for a select few, while my pieces on extreme pornography assume orphan status; either nobody wants them, or nobody wants to be seen to want them. Who knows?

I'll keep posting because extreme pornography, to me, says so much about human nature and our extraordinary diversity as a species. Posts on illustrators such as Toshio Saeki (a favorite) are generally well received by a consistent few, as are posts on current and not-so-current horror books.

The 109 of you who officially "follow" this blog are, no doubt, as different from each other in some ways as we are similar in other ways. Those differences keep the feedback hopping.

Personally, I'm a creature of extreme contrasts. On a weekend, I can eat breakfast while reading Toshio Saeki, then spend the rest of the morning watching Fly Away Home before screening In A Glass Cage for a friend in the afternoon. Before I fall asleep, I will probably crack open an Enid Blyton picture book that has just arrived from England.

I am fascinated by everything. EVERYTHING! My intellectual curiosity is unlimited. Hopefully, this blog reflects that.

The words weird, disgusting, and shocking rarely enter my internal lexicon. I find some material confronting, but, almost immediately, it becomes fascinating to me and worthy of further investigation. New obsessions are as regular as sunrises for me. The richness of our world is something to celebrate. Those who push again the tide of mediocrity need to be honored, embraced, and encouraged. I honor them here.

I want to thank and honor my 109 official Followers and those who Follow this blog discreetly for allowing me to share my passions with you and for contributing to the enrichment of my psyche.

If you folks were running the planet, I wouldn't need this blog.

As filmmaking duty calls (THE CLOTH DAGGER, my new film, is in production), I wish you all a Merry Xmas and Happy New Year!

See you in 2010.