The Bow (활)
The Bow (활, Hwal) is a 2005 South Korean drama film written, directed, and edited by Kim Ki-duk, about a 60-year-old man who has raised a 16-year-old girl on a fishing boat anchored at sea and plans to marry her on her 17th birthday1. It was Kim's twelfth feature and opened the Un Certain Regard section of the 2005 Cannes Film Festival2 • 3.
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Original title | 활 (Hwal), English title The Bow4 |
| Director / writer / editor | Kim Ki-duk5 |
| Release | May 12, 2005, South Korea; drama, Korean language1 |
| Runtime | 88 minutes per the Korean Film Council database; 90 minutes per Cannes, San Sebastian, and Busan festival records1 • 6 |
| Cast | Jeon Sung-hwan (the old man), Han Yeo-reum (the girl), Seo Ji-seok (the student), Jeon Guk-hwan5 |
| Key crew | Cinematography Jang Seung-baek; music Kang Eun-il5 |
| Production | Kim Ki-duk Film; co-production South Korea and Japan1 • 7 |
| Cannes 2005 | Opening feature of Un Certain Regard3 |
Spoilers
Plot
A man in his sixties lives with a girl he took in when she was about six years old on an old fishing boat permanently anchored off Korea's coast1 • 8. For ten years the two have lived alone on the water; the man crosses days off a calendar as he counts down to her 17th birthday, when he intends to marry her1. He earns a living ferrying day fishermen out to the boat, and he uses his bow to protect the girl from men who harass her3.
The bow has three uses in the film. It is a weapon for firing warning shots, a musical instrument the old man plays at the bow of the ship, and a fortune-telling device: the girl sits on a swing hung from the railing while the man shoots three arrows at a Buddhist painting on the hull behind her, and she reads the divination from where they land9 • 2.
The quiet arrangement is broken when a college student comes aboard to fish and the girl becomes attracted to him, distancing herself from the old man and arousing his jealousy1. When the student learns the girl was brought to the boat as a child and does not know the world, he tries to take her back to land and to her parents8.
Style and place in Kim Ki-duk's work
Kim Ki-duk, born in 1960, debuted with Crocodile (1996) and in 2004 won Best Director prizes at Berlin for Samaritan Girl and at Venice for 3-Iron3. Critics commonly divide his work into "island" films set in isolated spaces and "urban" films; The Bow belongs to the former group, alongside The Isle and Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring10.
The Busan festival's program note calls The Bow one of Kim's most abstract films, with the ship as the only set, a place where religious symbols, scars from violence, oppressed desire, and longing for art coexist3. The film has almost no dialogue; the San Sebastian festival catalog described it as an "intoxicating visual poem" carried by the soundtrack and the young lead actress's face5. The Guardian noted that the wordless central relationship continues the approach of the preceding 3-Iron9. The soundtrack uses orchestrated versions of traditional Korean fiddle music by Kang Eun-il10.
Production and release
Kim announced in March 2005 that he would decline domestic investment for the time being. The production budget was about 1 billion won, of which roughly 60 percent came from Hapinet; by that date the film had already sold for about $700,000 at the Berlin Film Market, recovering much of its cost before release11. It was a South Korean-Japanese co-production7.
In South Korea the film opened on May 12, 2005, on a single screen without a press screening, drawing 1,382 admissions and $6,924 in total gross1 • 12. Abroad it circulated widely on the festival circuit: after Cannes, it played San Sebastian (Zabaltegi), Karlovy Vary (Horizons), Montreal, Stockholm, and Leeds in 2005, and continued through Mar del Plata, Fantas Porto, BAFICI, and many others in 2006 and later1. At the Oporto festival's Orient Express section it won a Special Jury Award in 20068.
Reception
On Rotten Tomatoes the film holds an 86 percent Tomatometer from 7 critics and a 78 percent audience score13. Derek Elley of Variety called it "an elegiac portrait of elemental love complicated by the outside world" and praised the two central, dialogue-free performances13. Screen's Lee Marshall found the film ravishingly shot but judged that it lacked the depth of Kim's best work, feeling like treading water after 3-Iron10. The Korean film site koreanfilm.org recorded a critical consensus that the film fell below the level of Kim's other recent work, citing Manohla Dargis's harsh verdict in the New York Times14. The subject matter, a marriage plan between a man in his sixties and a 16-year-old girl, drew divided responses; some reviewers found the treatment tasteful and restrained, while others found the premise itself disturbing15 • 13.
References
- The Bow (2005), Korean Film Council (KOFIC) database
- 하재봉의 영화사냥: 활, 전자신문 (2005)
- The Bow, Busan International Film Festival archive, 10th (2005) Korean Cinema
- The Bow, AsianWiki
- Hwal / The Bow, San Sebastian Film Festival 2005 catalog
- HWAL (THE BOW), Festival de Cannes
- The Bow, FilmAffinity
- The Bow, TV Guide
- The Bow, DVD review, The Guardian (2007)
- The Bow (Hwal) review by Lee Marshall, Screen Daily (2005)
- 김기덕 감독, 국내 투자 고사, 연합뉴스 via Nate (2005)
- 숫자로 본 2005년 영화계, 스타뉴스 (2005)
- The Bow (2005), Rotten Tomatoes
- Korean Movie Reviews for 2005, koreanfilm.org
- The Bow review by Keith Dudhnath, Eye for Film (2007)
Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Comedy and romantic films (individual works) › Comedies of 2005 to 2006
Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026
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