Ieoh Island

Film

이어도

This is an extinction rebellion! Ieoh Island, Kim Ki-young’s third film with his young star Lee Hwa-si, is justly hailed as the most bizarre Korean film of all time, for its shamanic necrophilia, foggy island of women divers and cursed men, flashbacks-within-flashbacks, and lots of dead fish. Kim’s trademark horror combines his psychosexual drama with a parable of pollution that could not feel more timely.

Travel agent Hyun Sun-woo finds himself on Parang Island, where the men are cursed to die when their son is born. He is looking to clear his name of the murder of journalist Cheon Nam-suk, on a press trip to the mythical Ioeh Island said to beckon dead sailors. Sun-woo interviews Nam-suk’s lovers, one of whom is his own childhood love Min-ja, sworn to bear his son. Like Sun-woo, viewers get relentlessly drawn into the unique and intense island culture, following the red thread of shamanism through the film’s moody blues and greys to the unerring eco-logic of the film’s legendary, still-shocking climax. (SM)

Director: Kim Ki-Young

Writer: Ha Yu-Sang

Producer: Lee Woo-Suk

Cast: Lee Hwa-Si, Kim Chung-Chul, Park Jung-Ja, Park Am

Production Company: Dong A Exports CO., LTD

Rights Holder: Dong A Exports CO., LTD

Drama / 1977 / 110 min / CERT. 18 / Colour / DCP / Original Format: 35mm

Selected Filmography

Carnivorous Animal (1984)

A Woman After a Killer Butterfly (1978)

Promises (1975)

Insect Woman (1972)