Fish Obscuro: Io Island (South Korea; 1977)

by Jared Dec

Io Island – Ki-young Kim

South Korea 1977 112m

p Woo-seok Lee d Ki-young Kim w Yu-sang Ha ph Il-seong Jeon ed Dong-chun Hyeon art Myeong-su Lee m Sang-gi Han

Hwa-shi Lee, Jeong-cheol Kim, Yun-seok Chul, Mi-hye Kwon, Jeong-ja Park

Come eat your food!

Many in the cinema world at large have now heard the name of Ki-young Kim. Most however are really only aware of a single one of his films, The Housemaid, largely due in part to the critical accolades it has received from both critics of its native country and to Western film giants such as Martin Scorsese. What one will soon discover upon investigating deeper into Kim’s filmography is that he was anything but a one-hit wonder. Kim was a dentist by trade but somehow made a complete career shift into making films off of expired film stock left over by the american propaganda units after the Korean War. Kim can be credited with giving Korean cinema its first true auteur, developing a signature style that was reminiscent of Hitchcock but remains distinctly his own. Large portions of Kim’s filmography are unknown in the West, with all but one of his films made prior to The Housemaid being lost to the ages. However, of those that have survived, Io Island is a standout indeed now blessedly available on a passable DVD release from the fine folks at the Korean Film Archive.

Io Island’s plot is not what one would ever call simple. Wu-hyun Sun is a former director of planning for a travel agency traveling back to Parang Island, while numerous flashbacks (and often flashbacks within flashbacks) show what led to this vIoyage. Four years before his voyage Wu-hyun is en route to an event  to search for the mysterious Ieoh Island mentioned only in folktales. The event is celebrating the foundation of a hotel named after said island. A reporter from a local newspaper named Nam-seok demands that call off the event, but Wu-hyun refuses and fights with Nam-seok,. When Nam-seok mysteriously dies the same night, Wu-hyun is the primary suspect. When he is acquitted, Wu-hyn joins Nam-seok’s former editor and decides to solve the mystery of Nam-seok’s death. They begin their search on Nam-seok’s home island Parang, where they soon discover there seems to be a supernatural curse that dooms all of the island’s male residents to die upon giving birth to their first son. This leaves an island of sex-starved, deeply superstitious, and very mysterious women.

It should be noted that Io Island is essentially entirely set up for its final ten minutes. The mystery of the film, while never fully explained and the plot, which is completely contrived, serve the purpose for setting up the film’s ending. While that might not sound like the most glowing endorsement, those final ten minutes are among the most unforgettable in cinema, and not in the most positive way. Io Island ends in the most disturbing, sickening way imaginable, and I do not exaggerate when I say the content is so extreme at least in premise, that no mainstream American film today would be able to show such content, even with a hard R rating. Most importantly however this film’s unforgettably disturbing ending is not just for the sake of being grotesque but actually manages to be some of the most acid satire of Korea’s marital system that one can only applaud at Kim’s insane genius in both thinking of it in the first place but also having the guts to film the thing. You will find no spoilers in my review, but I will say that a woman does this most horrible, unfilmable thing and largely due to having promised her mother-in-law that she would do it at all costs. In Korea’s patriarchal marital system, women are expected to be in service to their in-law’s for life even after their husband’s death, all of which is played on its end to brilliant and completely messed-up levels for the film’s ending. This is all the more remarkable when one considers the adverse film industry conditions that existed in the late 70’s in Korea. One must remember that during this time, South Korea was under the dictatorship of Chung-hee Park, a man known for butchering many a would-nbe masterpiece from this era. In March of Fools (1975), one can’t help but notice how little is actually able to be shown of the conditions of life under the dictatorship due to heavy censorship. One can only wonder how Ki-young Kim managed to film this incredibly sickening ending with a budget provided mostly by his wife’s dental practice.

This film is not just memorable for its ending, with the mystery tightening ever more as the film progresses. The supernatural element is unusual for Kim, but his tropes of crazed female fatales, and murder are omnipresent throughout. The choice of Korea’s little known outlying islands as the setting is another stroke of genius. Jeju province and the surrounding islands are popular tourist stops for Korean tourists but are also somewhat backward compared to the mainland. Having been to Jeju and the mainland itself, I can say that many Koreans see Jeju as a fascinating yet mysteriously rural place that really is the only appropriate native setting for such a film given South Korea’s tiny size. Particular praise must be offered for Hwa-shi Lee’s performance. Lee was Kim’s muse and was featured often in his films, and although her career died with the end of Kim’s, she gives a truly memorable performance in Io Island that like its ending is not easily forgotten.

A masterful, unknown Korean horror masterpiece from Korea’s greatest auteur that deserves far more praise than it has ever gotten. Seek out but watch at your own risk as the ending may require a very long, hot shower and maybe a Chaplin short afterwards to cleanse your mind from the horrors you have just beheld.

****1/2