Award-winning South Korean director Kim Ki-duk is back with his latest movie The Net, featuring charismatic actor Ryoo Seung-bum as a North Korean fisherman stranded on South Korean shores.

Having won multiple awards, including the Golden Lion at the 69th Venice International Film Festival, Kim’s latest project will be especially enjoyable for North Korea watchers, filled with socio-political references to look out for.

For those who enjoyed Kim Ki-duk’s earlier works such as Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter… and Spring (2003) – a Buddhistic interpretation of the cycle of life – the new movie gives the opposite experience: the bloody struggle of an individual caught in the ruthless net.

NOT A DULL MOMENT

Like many of his former works, the director uses violence as the tool to contrast and portray how the state can subdue an individual and how easily an individual can crumble in the grasp of the system.

Believing that “not seeing anything” will help prove his innocence once he goes back to the North, from the moment he arrives in Seoul the stranded fisherman, Nam, keeps his eyes tightly closed.

But he is soon challenged by the National Intelligence Service (NIS) to “open his eyes” and make him see the freedom, richness and the life that he “can’t enjoy under the dictatorship of the North.”

Persuaded, lured, tempted and even coerced in the later part of the film, Nam continues his lonely fight against the system as he knows the inevitable fate his North Korean family will face if he decides to defect.

REALISM

North Korea watchers will particularly enjoy the attention to detail given to North Korean society, military, and propaganda.

Leading actor Ryoo Seung-bum‘s job of impersonating the poor North Korean fisherman is superb, speaking in an almost perfect North Korean accent during the whole movie, as are the cold-hearted NIS agents and the ideology-driven North Korean government officials.

But one of the real merits of the film is in the dozens of North Korean propaganda banners or pictures of the former leaders found out in almost every corner of the North Korea scenes in the movie.

In one scene, one of the actresses impersonates Ri Chun Hee, the veteran North Korean newsreader, reading out a North Korean statement announcing the beginning of a whole new propaganda war in a style that will remind audiences of April’s mass-defections.

LAND OF FREEDOM? MAYBE NOT

Unlike the recent South Korean movie Operation Chromite, or Russian director Vitaly Mansky’s Under the Sun, which have both been publicly promoted by Park Geun-hye, The Net has not received any response from the president so far.

This is probably because the film is filled with references that the current South Korean government might not like.

While the film is fictional, multiple references made to real-life inter-Korean or defector-related events mean the movie often paints a stark portrait of a South Korean policy towards the North.

There are several references to recent defector cases, but the most significant and most notable is to the case of Yoo Woo-seong, the defector who was falsely accused by the NIS of being a North Korean spy in early 2013.

Nam’s situation in the film has many parallels with Yoo’s case: the NIS uses false evidence and groundless accusations to force him into “admitting” that he is a spy sent by North Koreans.

Nam, completely cut-off from the world and surrounded by the agents, tries to resist, but a scene involving “enhanced interrogation techniques” gives a brief idea on how easily a “spy” can be fabricated with some delicate interrogation tactics.

But as much as he criticizes South Korean system’s ruthlessness, the director puts equal amount of effort in outlining that the “net” exists in North Korea as well.

What makes the director Kim Ki-duk’s work so different from others is the thought-provoking nature of the work. “The Net” does not hesitate to tackle the difficult issue of inter-Korean relations head on, as well as showing how quickly the South, the land of freedom, can turn against its values to achieve propaganda victory over the North.

“Is that how much you need North Korean spies?,” Nam cries out in desperation at one point in the film – one of many questions the director wants to ask South Korea’s establishment.

Edited by: Oliver Hotham

Featured Image: Official teaser