The Bow

I have always been a T.V. person and owing to the fact I have the worst scheme from Tata Sky Dish Services, I am only left to watch UTV World Movies and Phineas and Ferb these days.

While the latter happens to be a big hit in my daily scenario, UTV World Movies on the other hand is a once in a while deal for me, given to the fact that they air movies in languages I have never even heard of.

The other day while I was surfing the T.V. scene, I happened to have a brief look at this movie channel randomly. It had chinki looking characters, water, boats, an old man and a 16 year of girl and then I knew that it had to be Kim-Ki-Duk!


It's summary read as follows:

A 60 year old fisherman has been bringing up a girl since she was a baby. Now she is 16 years old and the fisherman has other intentions. But the arrival of a male student changes all their lives.


The intentions about which the summary speaks of is the kinds that would freak out fifty year old Indian house wives.
Ah, nothing extreme.. but you know how Indian home makers are!

The sixty year old man brings up a girl he found when she was six. It's been 10 years since and the old man plans on marrying her on her 17th birthday. He lives on the dough he makes by allowing people from the nearby areas to come for fishing. The old guy would be often misinterpreted as the girl's grandpa by anyone who is clueless about the plot as such. Not to mention, the characters in the movie who come for fishing assume very much the same.
Like all of Duk's movies, The Bow contains very little dialogues. The story proceeds casually, often describing the monotony of the protagonists' lives with great intricacies like how the old man gives the girl her daily bath, does her hair, sets up her bed at night, gets the daily groceries and cancels out each coming day in his calender and then flip a few months off to see and smile at a particular date marked with a red heart shaped design filled with some Korean calligraphy indicating the young girl's birthday and hence, their marriage day.
The days are mostly repetitive with a little everyday humdrum like the fishermen trying to have their way with the young female only to be aimed at by the old man with a bow and arrow.
The Bow's title is based on how the old man tells people's fortunes. The process is rather peculiar. Unlike how usually fortunes are told, the old man has his own style which involves tying of a colorful ribbon around the young girl's wrist, her sitting on a swing tied outside their main boat and the old man aiming at an old Buddha like figure painted on the outer wooden walls of the boat. The girl smiles as she swings, her gaze constantly set on the old man. It has no fear and while she keeps swinging at a constant pace, the oldie aims and shoots three times after which the girl whispers something in his ears and the oldie whispers the same in the client's ear.
Life runs smoothly for the both of them until one day a group of young male students come to their ship for fishing (probably on a group tour). The girl is attracted by a youthful boy and gradually they come closer to each other. The oldie grows overly protective of her and hates it when she goes to him. Suddenly, the girl starts hating the old man for keeping her caged for so many years and starts to get irritated at the very same actions which were earlier liked by her.

(Scenes when she can't allow the old man to give her a bath while she's sitting naked in a tub just like before and when she tries to get away the old man's grip from her wrist while she sleeps, the desperate old man's efforts to win her back and consequences that lead him to make a new double bed to keep her close to himself and how he cancels off a whole week and later rips off two pages (two whole months actually) from his calender to get married to her before it is too late, are brilliantly done!)

The young girl's attraction for the youth grows each coming day and one day she slips from her bed at night and sinks into the young boy's mattress to touch his lips and rub his cheeks. It is when the guy comes closer to her in order to kiss her, that the old man sees them together and with no pause he immediately takes away the boy from his boat. The boy promises to come back after he finds the girl's parents.
And while the boy is gone, the oldie's relationship with the girl remains strained.

Soon enough, the young boy returns with a note from her parents who claim their child. The old man is adamant and doesn't let him take her away. It is then that the guy challenges the old man to read his fortune too and predict as to whether or not he'd be able to take her away with himself or would the old man marry her off and live happily ever after.
The fortune telling process comes into play and the girl smiles at the old man. Her smile revealing a sense of confidence and pride which makes the old man very nervous. Two bows are shot and when he's about to shoot the final bow, the young boy pulls back the ropes of the swing and the girl falls into the water and the bow hits the Buddha in the head.
She whispers something which is passed onto the visitor by the old man.

The next day, the young boy politely asks the old man to let go off the girl because she has to see what the world outside is like, hearing which the old man gets really annoyed and he opens his cupboard and throws off the dresses he got for the girl and himself for their marriage.
The girl leaves and the boy follows and they finally leave the old man's boat. On the other hand, the old man cries his eyes off for the girl meant everything to him. He sees them going away in another boat and it is then that he takes a looped rope and puts it around his neck (ah, typical of Kim-Ki-Duk). The rope is in turn tied to the boat in which the boy and the girl are traveling and as they keep moving ahead, the rope tightens it's grip around the old man's neck. The pain gets unbearable for the man and he grabs hold of a knife kept nearby and tries to cut the rope, while on the other hand the girl realises something and rushes back to the oldie.

The old bastard on seeing her coming back to him hides the knife and continues to cough. The girl pities the old man, hugs him and you see them dressing up each other for their marriage in the next scene (the young boy has a stupefied look on his face all the while).
Finally they get married and sail off in another boat where the old man takes off the young bride's clothes revealing her in a long, white slip. He plants a gentle kiss on her cheek and plays some soothing music for her and the girl soon falls asleep and while she's still asleep, the old man aims his bow at the girl, then shoots it into the air and jumps into the water committing suicide.
This small boat moves back to the original boat where the dumb struck young boy is still there. He goes to check what's wrong and he sees the girl masturbating in her sleep. The very same arrow which the oldie had shot sometime back hits the boat's deck close to the girl who finally wakes up, smiles and they leave the boat for the 'real' world.

...


Though the movie is neat enough, it is not even close to what I have already seen of Kim-Ki-Duk's but I would appreciate the movie on the following grounds:

1. It was on T.V. and I didn't have to go through the pains of downloading or buying it.
2. The music was cool enough.
3. The young Korean boy was cute.
4. KIM-KI-DUK!
5. I was jobless.