Leofwine_draca MOEBIUS is another provocative effort from Korean auteur Kim Ki-duk, a man who is one of my all-time favourite directors thanks to his efforts on such masterpieces as SPRING, SUMMER, AUTUMN, WINTER...AND SPRING. This is more of a low budget, experimental film with the biggest twist that there is no spoken dialogue in the whole movie, although Ki-duk is such a good director that you don't even notice.The story is about a twisted family relationship that propels various characters into perversity. When an odd and unexpected castration occurs in the first five minutes you know you're in for a wild ride and Ki-duk certainly delivers in that respect. His film is frequently shocking and harrowing, and yet it seems to explore the human condition in an artistic and somehow beautiful way too. I see it best as a story of a virus initiated by an act of violence that then spreads to all of the characters involved, leading to a nihilistic outcome that is both powerful and inevitable. MOEBIUS is challenging, thought-provoking, and thoroughly engaging, just like all of the director's films I've watched.

Alif Ahmed I had this movie on my computer for more than two years, didn't think about watching it. Today when I was about to delete it, I thought, why not take a fast forward look before removing permanently, so I watched a few scenes from here and there and closed the player. After closing the player I realised I must watch it and started to watch it from the beginning. After watching it I thought, how did I miss it? It is like million dollar diamond lying on the floor and I have not noticed it in more than two years. I would like to say that I am grateful to all the four main actors, director, producer and all the staffs for their dedicated work. Mr. Ki-duk Kim, Sir I'm grateful to you for depicting this subject from such a different perspective that I think no religious script can ever do.

christopher-underwood Unable to find the subtitle option in the DVD menu, I held on to the remote with my finger poised over the subtitle option, ready to bring them up if they were not embedded. They were not embedded. There were none. There is no dialogue. That was only shock number one. As this incredible but very difficult film progresses, the shocks keep coming. Others have written most eloquently of this film so I will not dwell upon the Freudian and Buddhist overtones suffice to say this is not a frivolous or exploitative movie even if I did have to turn away once or twice. Many point out the humorous nature of this but smile though I did a few times it is difficult to laugh with a pistol pointed at your penis and a knife in your back. So, there is castration, self mutilation, rape, incest, genital surgery, sex and violence. All fairly explicit but in fairness to this great director, also very much to the point.

daretostruggledaretowin This movie is about penises getting chopped off and the aftermath therein. It is the epitome of a psycho-sexual thriller and it has all the Freudian trappings: castration anxiety, Oedipal anxiety, incest, impotence, masochism, phallocentrism, rape ad nauseum.The primary theme of the film is a phallocentric look at emasculation. However, this does not necessarily make it a misogynistic film. Indeed, through its phallocentrism it reveals maleness to be much more infantile (there's Freud again) than it may intuitively seem.A father cares about his son's sexuality and his safety. However, he is emasculated by the act of his son's emasculation (by the Oedipal matriarch). The gun he uses to sympathize with his son is also a phallic symbol and the blood splatters he spares his son are the final orgasm. The Oedipal complex is in full effect here, even before it is revealed that once the son regains his sexuality he can only be made potent by the one who robbed him of it in the first place.There is a woman in the film who represents the interloper into the family unit. Ironically, the interloper in the relationship between the father and son is not the mother, but the woman who represents the pure sexuality of the other. This also reveals to us a life lesson: We can't always love the one we screw, and we can't always screw the one we love. This is a tragic dichotomy that punctuates this Shakespearian tragedy of a film.There is finally the Buddhist redemption from the Western, Freudian pathology. Elimination of suffering is to be found, not in the pursuit of pleasure or passion, but in indifference to both pleasure and pain. Masochism and hedonism are two sides of the same coin and reality is to be found, not in a Jungian choice between love or fear (or the Freudian sex or death), but in the middle path: indifference. To not care is to become enlightened.