The Isle (섬)

The Isle (섬, Seom) is a 2000 South Korean drama-thriller written and directed by Kim Ki-duk, set on a remote lake where fishermen rent floating huts and centering on a mute woman who runs the fishing resort and a fugitive who comes there to die.^{1 • 2} It premiered in South Korea on April 22, 2000, competed at the Venice International Film Festival, and became notorious on the festival circuit for scenes of self-mutilation involving fishhooks.^{1 • 3}

Reception and notoriety

Festival screenings. The Isle competed at Venice in 2000 and then circulated widely, with invitations to Toronto, Karlovy Vary, Rotterdam, Sydney, Stockholm, and many other festivals in 2000 and 2001, and further retrospective appearances into the 2000s and 2010s.¹ At Sundance in 2001, Roger Ebert reported, there were gasps and walk-outs among an audience he described as hardened and sophisticated.³ At a 2000 Philadelphia Film Festival screening, the programmer opened with an in-person disclaimer warning that Kim's film would be the most graphic of that year's lineup.¹⁰

The film's reputation as a shock object was sealed by rumors that a fishhook scene caused "fainting spells and vomit seizures" at some screenings, an episode that established Kim Ki-duk's reputation as a shock auteur.¹¹ Critics were divided but largely engaged: the Metascore of 61 rests on 12 reviews, five positive, six mixed, and one negative, with Stephen Holden of The New York Times praising the contrast between gory scenes and "shimmering cinematography" resembling an Asian landscape painting, and Roger Ebert calling it "the most gruesome and quease-inducing film you are likely to have seen" while also finding it beautiful, angry, and sad.^{5 • 3} Rotten Tomatoes records 76% freshness from 34 reviews, with a critics' consensus describing "a compelling and oddly haunting combination of brutal and beautiful imagery."⁶

Censorship. The British Board of Film Classification required four compulsory cuts to the 2003 cinema release, all for sight of animal cruelty under the Cinematograph (Animals) Act 1937, bringing the classified running time to 88 minutes 8 seconds; the director had admitted the cruelty to fish was genuine.^{12 • 7} The Irish censor in 2004 required further cuts totaling 3 minutes 15 seconds on top of the British trims before certifying the film 18.⁷

Commercial performance. The film was released in the United States on August 23, 2002, by Empire Pictures, grossing $20,666 in the US and Canada and $24,963 worldwide against an estimated budget of $1,000,000.^{6 • 7}

Place in Kim Ki-duk's career

The Isle was Kim Ki-duk's fourth feature, and its festival success marked the point at which a director who was considered a problem case at home began receiving attention abroad first.^{4 • 13} Its themes of outsiders, obsessive relationships, and bodily extremity recur through his later work, including The Bow (2005) and Pieta (2012), and scholars have treated it as the emblematic example of his controversial style; Steve Choe, a scholar of Korean cinema, opens his 2016 book Sovereign Violence with an account of the film's festival reception and its images of corporeal abuse.¹⁰ Academic readings have connected the film's brutal intimacy to the Korean concept of han, marginality, and masochism.¹⁴

Kim went on to become, by Yonhap's account, the only Korean director to win trophies at all three of Cannes, Venice, and Berlin, taking the Silver Bear for Samaritan Girl and the Silver Lion for 3-Iron (빈집) in 2004 and the Un Certain Regard prize for Arirang at Cannes in 2011.¹⁵ He died in December 2020 in a Latvian hospital after COVID-19 worsened, at a reported age of 59 or 60, and The Isle has since been revived in tribute screenings, including in the Eye Classics series at Eye Filmmuseum in Amsterdam.^{15 • 16}

Notes on versions and dating

Sources disagree on small details of the film's identity. The Korean Film Council and festival catalogs date it to 2000 with a running time of 85 to 90 minutes depending on the print, while the BBFC's cut 2003 print runs 88 minutes 8 seconds and Eye Filmmuseum lists 86 minutes.^{1 • 2 • 12 • 16} Steve Choe's chapter and one festival listing give the production year as 1999, and Rotten Tomatoes lists a 2002 US release year on its title page, reflecting the film's staggered international rollout rather than its Korean premiere.^{10 • 6}

References

1. The Isle (2000), Korean Film Council
2. The Isle (Seom), International Film Festival Rotterdam 2001
3. Roger Ebert, "The Isle" review, Chicago Sun-Times, January 31, 2003
4. The Isle, Karlovy Vary International Film Festival program
5. The Isle, Metacritic
6. The Isle, Rotten Tomatoes
7. The Isle (2000), IMDb
8. The Isle review, Eye for Film
9. Seom (The Isle), MoMA press archive, Kim Ki-Duk retrospective
10. Steve Choe, "Unredeemable Images," in Sovereign Violence: Ethics and South Korean Cinema in the New Millennium, Amsterdam University Press, 2016
11. Cinema as a Window on Contemporary Korea, Association for Asian Studies
12. The Isle, British Board of Film Classification
13. 미투로 추락한 '이단아' 영화 감독 김기덕, YonhapnewsTV
14. Disavowing The Isle: Masochism and New Extremity, Intellect Journals
15. 김기덕 감독 코로나19 관련 보도, YonhapnewsTV
16. The Isle, Eye Filmmuseum

Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Crime, thriller, and mystery films (individual works) › 2000–2004 films › Released 2000 to 2002

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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