I saw this movie yesterday at the International Film Festival in Rotterdam.

Flower Island starts by "introducing" three women, who each in the past have had something happen to them that has mentally scarred them for life. Later through coincidence, they are united and together head to Flower Island, that according to legends will make you forget all your sorrows. And trust me, they have quite a few.

Flower Island is foremost a movie about emotions. Through sometimes graphic, at othertimes serene scenes, Flower Island tells an interesting story with some surprisingly effective visual tools. We see approx half of the film through the camera eye of one of the women as she has a dv camera with her. The movie was shot on DV but image quality is very reasonable and never distracts the user from the movies content (unlike Entre Nous). The Soundtrack is truly stunning and reminds me of certain musical "moods" as set in Darren Aronofsky's Requiem for a Dream. One moving scene, a departure on a boat in the air (!) will remain imprinted in my mind for a long time.

I must warn that this movie is very slow. As with most japanese and korean cinema (this is korean), emotions are emphasized through long silent moments with at times sudden outbursts of tears. People that appreaciate the more subtle works of Kitano Takeshi will find some similarities here.

I recommend this movie to the more "advanced" asian cinema fan. If you were preparing for Final Fantasy ,Stormriders, or Swiri like cinema, you are _DEFINETLY_ at the wrong address.

I recently saw this film in the Foreign Film festival of Brugge,and left it with the feeling of not having seen such a profound flick for a very long time. A pity that films of such beauty could not become more widely available. It asks, simply and plainly, a most human question, namely, whether there is healing to great tragedy and sorrow--a question with which, I believe, we are all eventually confronted--lest we are spiritless. We are at first presented with three women, each one of them having just undergone personal disasters of truly unbearable (although commonplace) magnitude. These three tragic heroes, brought together in a most unseeming way, set off to find Flower Island, a place where, it is said, all pains and sorrows are healed. Their search for Flower Island will not turn, however, into an adventure: Flower Island is not what you would call a magical or mythical place as such, but the endeavor yields its miracles in a most fascinating manner.

So what is Flower Island? It does not ruin the film at all for those who have not seen it when I say that it is found in the companionship itself, in the sharing of each other's toils, in the paradoxical giving of what we lack. In spite of how absurd and fragile human bondage is, in it we find the precious gift of healing, that allows us to go on living. As Aquinas once put it, in being a true good towards another we overcome our own sadness.

Finally, let me add that a superb--though tranquil and simple--plot is here framed with delicacy and taste. The tragedies of these three women are shocking but not obscene: they will definitely touch you, and yet not irritate you. The imagery employed is very convincing. By the end of the movie, I believe, the question that the film posits is answered in an honest and realistic manner, and this is what makes it so much worth seeing.

Probably the best drama I've seen in many a day. Wonderful acting from the three women, especially considering two of them were complete amateurs. A perfect example of how you can make a movie and it's plot progress without unnecessary words. Alone worth my trip to Göteborg Film Festival this year. I can only hope it will get distribution in Sweden (and elsewhere) so that more people can get a chance to see it.

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

and then fizzles into an insipid pretense of resolution. I believe the film makers are trying to show that in the midst of a suffering world, there can be magic, acceptance, healing and resolution. They do very well at depicting the pain these women have landed in, and brief vignettes of what brought them to a journey of faith and desperation. And the random bus drive to snowy Northern provinces shows much promise. But after that, the idea-well runs dry, and in the rest of this film, the journey is definitely not the destination.

There is nothing magical in the film-work about the Island nor its angelic resident, and there needs to be. It is only more banality, but banality shown in a positive light.

The singer, Jun In(?), who opens the film with a great powerful narrative, never gets back to that level of feeling. She drifts, mysterious and silent in the background of the action, until she finally disappears.

It is very obvious what the filmmakers are trying to do with her character, but it's lame- it just doesn't work. She's the pathetic, almost irritating ghost, where she could be a tremendous character of conflict- a woman who has reneged on the unique gift that was given her, and is desperate for redemption of some sort before she leaves this earth.

That golden opportunity is squandered by the directors, and the film sinks....somewhere toward her inexorable fade, she needs to burst into a dramatic death song from La Boheme, or what in God's name is the use? Have these people never seen opera? That's the pity, that this film could have been a relentless tear-jerker that draws an audience into these women's lives, but the directors squander chance after chance.

The other two characters are bland and forgettable, and that is not forgivable. There is nothing of interest about them in their ordinary and crappy lives- a thing that a good filmmaker must make happen, or why bother turning on the camera? And the gay band with their emotional wallowing and self-pity? Puh-lease, spare the audience. If those guys aren't the messengers of death of a film by cancer or boredom....the sad final note is that this could have been a great film.