Kim Ki-Duk, "3-Iron" (2004)

The Korean title of Kim Ki-Duk’s “3-Iron” is <빈 집> or empty house. The protagonist Tae-Suk sticks fliers on the doors of houses on the same street or apartment building in hopes of identifying exactly that—an empty house. His flier distribution lays the groundwork for his later visit to these streets and buildings; he will slide his way into the house that still has the flier on its door which indicates that the residents are likely away for a while. The break-ins are not for the purpose of pillaring, however. Rather Tae-Suk just takes a shower, hand washes the residents’ clothes for them, and loiters around the house, perhaps fixing one or two malfunctioning household electronics on the way. He is no thief but a wanderer. His relationship with Sun-Hwa, a housewife suffering domestic abuse, begins with such a visit to an empty house or what Tae-Suk assumed to be one. 

Sun-Hwa in Black-and-White

Tae-Suk’s probe through the interior of Sun-Hwa’s house reveals jovial photos of the pair (her husband and Sun-Hwa) and a black-and-white photo of her. She is looking straight into the camera, naked yet posed elegantly. When Sun-Hwa leaves with Tae-Suk, she takes part in his endeavor of gypsying harmlessly yet ephemerally from one empty house to the next. Then, in what appears to be a place of a photographer, she finds that same black-and-white photo of hers. And here she does something that impressed me greatly: she divides up the picture into small squares and pieces them together into a complete mismatch. Her body parts are scrambled: her face extends from a part of her arm, and her leg from her hair, as unsolved puzzle pieces poorly put together. When at the end of the film Tae-Suk is released from prison and visits this place again, the photo is almost unscrambled: some pieces are out of place, while most have come back to their usual place, making the whole of Sun-Hwa as shown before her attempt to scramble it. “I feel like someone is here in the room,” the photographer says. And then with swift turns of Kim’s camera the almost-completed Sun-Hwa is gone, and an empty frame hangs on the wall.

I see many lovers of this film interpreting Tae-Suk’s progression from a wanderer, prisoner, to lover in reunion with Sun-Hwa as analogous to the three stages of enlightenment in Buddhism: impermanence, tranquility, and nirvana. Although it is Tae-Suk who seems to have achieved such transcendence, the transformations that Sun-Hwa’s photo takes through the film seem to point to a kind of “transcendence” she goes through as well. While she cannot seamlessly float from one place to the next like Tae-Suk does with his release from prison, she is able to make an almost private reconciliation—no longer masquerading stability as in the photo at her home, nor twisted and confused as in the mismatched photo, but gone, invisible, free from this world like the empty frame at the end. When at the end only she sees Tae-Suk, who does not show himself to her husband, her anger, annoyance, and resentment at this abusive and domineering husband transforms instantly to calmness; and she radiates happiness that originates only from such peace of mind. She embraces her husband with the whisper of “I love you,” yet all the while her lips are meeting Tae-Suk’s (hence the poster of “3-Iron”). She is the only one who can fully feel his presence or the only one he allows himself to be revealed.

Silence and Violence

As the film started, and I put my earbuds on, a harsh, thrashing sound made me cringe and reflexively remove the earbuds. I was convinced this was a beating sound, a terrible whip scarring the bare skin of a person. Instead, the sound turned out to originate from the swings of a golf club and the golf balls that would zip by and strike the net with such force that I mistook it for a beating. If there is any sound in this nearly dialogue-free movie, it is the terrible sound of the golf club, whether harmless as in the above scene or targeted against someone in vengeance or resentment. More generally, prevalent throughout the film is the sound of beating, crashing, punching, and slapping—that of violence. Kim explained in one interview that the motif of golf in the film (so much so that its English title is a type of golf club: 3-Iron) is born out of his realization of the destructive power of golf equipment, especially the 3-Iron due to its sturdiness. The verbal silence of the main characters—Tae-Suk and Sun-Hwa—co-exists with an abundance of physical violence in the film.

Perhaps the most striking was the scene in which Tae-Suk resists confessing his crimes by remaining silent the entirety of the investigation. Here the investigator threatens physical violence at him. “아 이 새끼 말로 안되겠는데,” he says. His questioning words did not work on Tae-Suk, so he will rather resort to beating him up. The line might not be meaningful in any ways; indeed it is all too typical for a corrupt investigator, a character not uncommon in Korean films, to threaten a subject remaining in silence with violence with a line similar to the one in this film. Yet despite their banality the words struck me as pointing to something larger than the microcontext of the situation. It is true that language, by its very nature social, allows interpersonal understanding and connects one individual to another. Hence, a refusal to use language implies the imposition of interpersonal distance and disengagement. This is why for the investigator Tae-Suk’s refusal to speak to him or explain himself implies his refusal to engage civilly, which then permits this use of violence. Yet despite its use for understanding between people, it is altogether clear throughout the film that language hides and tricks more than anything: the actual intents of the investigator, prison guard, and Sun-Hwa’s husband are revealed through their physical violence. Words may try to cover up ugliness, most distinctively with Sun-Hwa’s husband who coaxes her into submitting under his sexual desire, yet with the swing of the golf club and slap of the woman’s face their words dissipate. Furthermore, the most intimate connection between Tae-Suk and Sun-Hwa is built upon silence.

To conclude…

I reviewed the themes of silence, violence, and transcendence; less emphasized through this article is how “3-Iron” is a beautiful film, much more romantic than you would expect from Kim Ki-Duk. No dialogue, two kiss scenes, no sex scenes, and I still found it intimate. I loved it. 

Watch “3-Iron”:  https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0423866/

The interview with Kim mentioned in the article: https://youtu.be/XkCHpSteol0?si=GM8ffDUFlGpvwaiX

Written 17 June, 2024.

HL from NC, U.S.A.