This is a story in 5 parts of the life of a young boy (Seo Kyoeng Seo) who is trained by his old master (Oh Yeong Su) to become a monk. As a child he is naught and starts tying rocks to animals such as a fish, a frog and a snake. His master watches him, and in his sleep ties a rock to him and makes him go find and save the animals if he can, or their deaths will be on his conscience forever, only the frog survives. Then the boy is growing up (Kim Young Min now plays him) and a mother sends a sick Girl (Ha Yoe Jin) to stay with them. The boy is instantly infatuated with the Girl and eventually starts having sex with her, which cures her. The old monk finds out and sends her home, telling the boy that love can lead to desire and even murder. The boy ends up leaving with the Buddha and a chicken to find the girl. Years later the old master has gotten a cat and got some food with a newspaper wrapping and sees that his pupil has murdered his wife and is on the run. He shows up, now played by Kim Ki Duk, and has the murder knife, and can’t even kill himself the master tells him he can so easily kill, but is hard to be killed, and makes him carve a sutra into the temple to release his anger, and 2 cops show up (Ji Dae Han and Choi Min) and wait for him to finish his sutra before leaving. The old master then pulls the boat back with his power, and prepeares himself, and burns himself in a bonfire in the boat, but setting the boat so it sinks and survives. In winter the much old pupil returns, and digs out his masters remains and puts them into an ice Buddha he carves. He then takes his masters old martial arts manuals and begins to train himself. A woman (Park Ji A) shows up with her face wrapped and a baby (Song Min Young) she plans on leaving, but the mother falls into a hole in the ice as she leaves and dies. The man, now the master raises the boy, who is the same child that he was, showing the circular nature of the world, as he has become his old master.

A wonderful film, really beautiful and well done. And a welcome change, not your standard narrative at all. I was so surprised by this film because I have stayed away from Kim Ki Duk’s films because of the content, and didn’t like SAMARITAN GIRL at all, but this film I really enjoyed.