Seom (The Isle)

Seom (The Isle) (2000)

  • 75% of critics liked it
    (32 reviews)

  • 72% of users liked it
    (5,660 ratings)

Recalling both the erotic tension and the surrealist imagery of Woman of the Dunes, Kim Ki-duk's film is set near a remote lake where men come far and wide to fish on anchored rafts. Running a little bait-and-tackle shop is the earthy -- almost feral -- young lass Hee-jin (Seoh Jung), who sometimes… More

Unrated, 1 hr. 29 min.
Directed By
Ki-duk Kim
Written By
Ki-duk Kim
Genres
Art House & International, Drama
In Theaters
Sep 1, 2000 Wide
On DVD
May 20, 2003
Myung Film

Critic Reviews

  • Mark Jenkins, Washington Post

    Spring, Summer fans should only have their appreciation of that film expanded by seeing this rougher take on similar themes.

  • Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times

    Beautiful, angry and sad, with a curious sick poetry, as if the Marquis de Sade had gone in for pastel landscapes.

  • Glenn Lovell, San Jose Mercury News

    There is little question that this is a serious work by an important director who has something new to say about how, in the flip-flop of courtship, we often reel in when we should be playing out.

  • Carla Meyer, San Francisco Chronicle

    A gorgeous and grotesque Korean film by director Kim Ki-Duk, who seems torn by his artistic and exploitive impulses.

  • Jan Stuart, Newsday

    Once [Kim] begins to overplay the shock tactics and bait-and-tackle metaphors, you may decide it's too high a price to pay for a shimmering picture postcard.

Read all 16 critic reviews

Critic ratings and reviews powered by RottenTomatoes.com

Fresh (60% or more critics rated the movie positively)

Rotten (59% or fewer critics rated the movie positively)

Featured Audience Ratings

  • Lee ?


    Kim Ki-duk serves up another dark and twisted love-story themed film set on a fishing lake where a mute woman and a man with a troubled past find attraction with eachother. The movie is very picturesque and beautiful to look at at times, then we have some rather unpleasant scenes that… More

  • familiar s


    Unforgettable quotes and dialogues... No, no, wait. The movie speaks volumes through its silence... Damn it. FML that I happen to stumble upon such films these days around.

  • xGary X


    A suicidal young man who is on the run from the police enters into an obsessive relationship with the woman who services the small fishing community in which he is hiding. The Isle is one of those "arthouse" films which relies far more on a keen visual eye and twisted sexual… More

  • Lady D


    The first thing I did immediately after watching this, was to grab the dvd case and read the synopsis to try to understand the hidden theme to the film. The dvd synopsis claims ?The Most sexually perverse movie to hit our screens since David Cronenberg?s CRASH? Totally untrue,… More

  • Arash X


    Bleak portrayal of human condition & relationships, Not so similar but the main character somehow reminded me of the main character in Haneke's La Pianiste the way she repress her feelings & ends up hurting herself

Read all 12 featured audience ratings

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