The film begins with a desperate young man in a wheelchair. With a thick iron hook around his neck, he pressed the switch on the side, and the body slowly rose, and the boy's life ended.
The male protagonist, Li Kangdao, is a heinous loan shark who has no wife, no children, no parents, and lives alone.
His daily job was to demand accounts from those who borrowed usury, and his methods were so cruel that for those who could not repay the money, Kang Dao directly crippled them to obtain insurance money to pay off debts.
I don't know how many people committed suicide or were disabled at the hands of Lee Kang-do.
Li Kangdao came to a dilapidated small workshop early in the morning to ask for an account, and the couple was extremely afraid of his arrival.
Unable to come up with the money, the husband had to sacrifice one of his hands.
In a hurry, his wife took off her clothes in front of Li Kangdao, hoping to use her body to give him another week.
However, Li Kangdao did not touch her, but only whipped the woman a few times.
Therefore, in the end, the husband's hand was still put under the machine by Li Kangdao and became a disabled person.
Li Kangdao's way of working is so simple and rough, he lives like this every day.
Until one day, a strange woman broke into his home.
This woman claimed to be Lee Kang-do's mother, and she followed Lee wherever she went.
Although Li Kangdao beat and scolded her, she still followed Li Kangdao's side and asked him what kind of food he wanted to eat at night.
Lee Went to ask for the account as usual, while the debtor committed suicide.
In the evening, Li Kang had drunk a lot of wine, and he took advantage of the wine to dial the phone of the woman who claimed to be his mother.
After the phone call, Li Kangdao was constantly asking why the woman should abandon him?
The woman on the other end of the phone did not speak, but gently sang him a nursery rhyme.
Li Kangdao opened the door, but found the woman sitting in front of his door with tears on her face, singing.
Li Kangdao returned to the house and did not close the door, and his mother walked in.
Li Kangdao excitedly asked the woman, how do you prove that it is my mother?
With that, he went to the bathroom and cut a piece of flesh from his leg and handed it to the woman: If you are my mother, eat it.
The woman grabbed the piece of flesh and swallowed it.
Li Kangdao had never seen his mother in 30 years, and the appearance of this woman made him messed up.
Driven by alcohol and impulse, he tried to rape the woman, but in the face of his mother's helpless screams and cries, he stopped.
The next day, as if nothing had happened, my mother made a table for Lee Kang-do for breakfast.
Li Kang looked at his mother, did not eat, and went out.
In fact, his heart is gradually accepting this woman.
Li Kangdao, who has lacked maternal love for 30 years, especially cherishes the woman who suddenly appears in front of him.
They go to the playground together, eat together, and celebrate birthdays together.
Under the loving care of his mother, Li Kangdao even gave up his job and stopped collecting bills.
My mother had been knitting a red and white sweater, and Lee Kang-do excitedly asked if it was a birthday present for me? The mother did not answer.
Their feelings grew stronger, but their mother disappeared.
Li Kangdao answered his mother's phone, and on the other end of the phone came his mother's screams and loud crashing sounds.
His mother was kidnapped, which was Lee Kang-do's first reaction.
He didn't know that it was all self-directed and self-acted by his mother.
He went door to door in the homes of debtors, looking for his mother.
However, he didn't find it, and sent her a picture, and he immediately looked for it.
His mother was standing on the roof, and Li Kangdao was about to rush up.
The mother shouted, don't let him come up and create a scene of someone behind her threatening her.
Li Kangdao was so frightened that he immediately fell to his knees and begged the person who did not exist to spare his mother, saying that it was all his fault.
In the end, my mother jumped from the upper floor and fell to her death.
Li Kangdao hugged his mother and screamed in pain.
He buried his mother under the pine tree they had planted together.
As he dug the earth, he found a young man below, wearing the red and white sweater his mother had woven.
This goes back to the man at the beginning of the film, Lee Kang-do's so-called mother, who is the real mother of this man, and all this is nothing more than the mother's plan to avenge her child.
The woman approaches Lee Kang-do, pretends to be his mother, and finally commits suicide, making Lee Kang-do think that her death is because of herself, thus experiencing the pain of losing her loved ones.
In fact, Li Kangdao had long understood that this was all a woman's plan, but he still lay next to his mother and quietly hugged her.
Finally, Li Kang arrived at the home of a man who had been maimed by him, and he chained himself to the bottom of the truck.
The man's wife drove the truck, and Lee Wasong-do was dragged to death.
At dawn, the road left a long trail of bright red blood.
This is the 2012 work of South Korean director Kim Ki-duk,000, which won the highest Golden Lion Award at the 69th Venice Film Festival.
The film has no complicated plot design, and in a calm way creates a life-and-death crisis between the underclass of South Korea.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > I could have endured the darkness if I hadn't seen it</h1>
The male protagonist Li Kangdao is a typical contradiction, pitiful, hateful, pathetic, and lamentable.
He is the relief lord in people's eyes, and he is even more demonic.
He never hesitated to lend money to those whose lives were difficult, but when it came time to ask for money, he became a cold and heartless beast.
However, the appearance of his mother shattered his frozen heart.
This person who was born and abandoned by his parents grew into a bad person in the eyes of everyone in an indifferent environment.
But his heart still longs for love and warmth.
There is also an unknown softness in his heart, when a young father prays for the sake of life to chop off his hands, Li Kangdao refuses, and tells him to use these hands to play the piano for the baby.
As director Kim Ki-duk said, "The characters who appear in my films are not good people or bad people, good and evil, they are just characters that I have created and arranged in this land as a director."
The character of Li Kangdao embodies two sides of human nature, he can be a cruel bully, or a victim who has never been loved and warmed.
Just as Pepsi must have Pepsi has cause and effect, the world is always obeying the law of conservation.
Therefore, Li Kangdao is just a survivor under the operation of the social system and the capital system, and he has too many sores and too many helplessness on his body.
Li Kangdao's "mother", she is selfish and selfless, she is kind and sinful.
Losing a beloved child, a plan of revenge is staged.
The most cruel way to take revenge on a person is to give him hope and then break it.
Her "love" for Li Kangdao is a bomb she has deliberately planted, but this false love also truly gives Li Kangdao a short and costly warmth.
In the process of getting along with Li Kangzhi, she did satisfy her mother's role in Li Kangzhi's body.
Just as when she finally jumped off the building, she finally avenged her child, but at the same time felt sad, saying that Lee Kang-do was a poor man.
Kang Dao's ending is tragic, although he is bullying others as a strong man, but this huge society and the fate of people are bullying him.
The pain of losing his loved ones also made Kang Dao feel the grief of those families who were incomplete because of him, and Kang Dao chose the end of his life, not only for the guilt of those who had been hurt by him, but also for his own redemption.
Whether it is Li Kangdao or his mother, they are actually using their own hidden darkness or gentleness in the depths of their hearts to complete their redemption of themselves.