The Crocodile (1996 film)

Young Paeh ( Cho Jae-hyung ) is a homeless nicknamed Crocodile living on the embankment of the Hang River in the company of an old man and a little homeless young Buon. The main source of his income - drowned, which Young Peh regularly cleans, diving to the bottom of the river. One night, a girl named Hyun Joong is dropped from the bridge, which Crocodile catches from the river and brings to life. The girl joins the homeless. Yong Peh solicits Hyun Joong and eventually forcibly seizes her. Crocodile chains the girl to her so that she does not run away.

In the morning the boy frees the girl, for which Yong Pe punishes him. In the evening of the same day, an old man finds an abandoned coffee machine, next to which Hyun Joong sat. She returns with the old man to the embankment of the river. Crocodile again trying to seize the girl, but she gives a fight. The old man and the boy stand in her defense. At night, a homeless child tries to cut off the crocodile sexual organ, but the old man does not allow the child to finish what he has begun, and the boy only hurts him.

Young Pae again rapes Hyun Joong. The boy decides to take revenge and at night she cuts the brakes on a Crocodile moped. In the morning, Young Peh leaves for the city and takes Young Bayun with her. On the way, the boy leaves the Crocodile alone under the fictional pretext, and he almost crashes on a moped, miraculously remaining alive.

The crocodile suffers a series of failures: he loses the money he has just earned (he convicts the players of cheating, but the attempt to revenge is strictly stopped); unsuccessfully trying to sell counterfeit medicine to increase potency (for which, due to the fault of the distracted, Ian Bjuna gets from a deceived crowd); blackmails a couple of lovers, whom he found in the car, but instead of money and the girl receives only beatings.

Family relations develop between the characters, in which the Crocodile is also being tried in every possible way. The old man interferes with the surrender of the beverage dispenser he found. Crocodile stalking Hyun Joong. Hyun Joong finds his fiancé, Chung Ho, with another woman. In a bar with a drunk Yong Pe meets a man. He brings him to him. It turns out that he is the originator of the photo-robots. The stranger sticks to Young Peh, for which Crocodile severely beats him.

In the morning, Crocodile is trying to learn more about the bridegroom Hyun Joong, and he tracks him down. A dialogue is established between them, and Chun Ho admits to his indifference to the girl. The crocodile is beaten by a group of people looking for Hyun Joong, but he manages to escape. He tells Hyun Joong the truth about her fiancé, but she doesn’t believe him.

During the day in the park, the mafiosi give the little boy a pistol that he takes to be a toy. He is asked to shoot him into a man, which the boy does. The portrait painter, who wants to take revenge on Crocodile for beating, during the interrogation of this case, draws instead of the criminal Yong Peh. His photofit brings a frightened Ian Byun to an old man. At night, the Crocodile is taken to the inquest, where the criminal is mistakenly recognized. However, the old man who saw the real killer, rescues the Crocodile. In the same mafia park, they give to Young Byun the same task, offering this time to “kill the machine gun”. The boy shoots him. Crocodile looking for an old man. He discovers his body inside the same gun, which shot Young Bean.

Crocodile abducts the bridegroom Hyun Joong. Together with her, he takes him to a secluded place where Yong Pae reveals the whole truth about Chung Ho: he not only cheated on her, but also knew that she had been raped. The enraged girl tries to shoot the groom, but does not dare. The crocodile kills Chun Ho himself.

At night, the girl voluntarily gives Yong Peh. When everyone falls asleep, Hyun Joong plunges into the river. Crocodile wakes up from the plaintive cries of the boy, begging to help her. Unable to save Hyun Joong, Yong Pe sits her on a sofa at the bottom of the river, surrounded by various items of interior. He handcuffs himself to the girl and sits down beside him. At the last moment it is covered with panic. The crocodile is trying to unfasten the handcuffs, but to no avail. Yong Pe rips up his stomach and dies.

As the first film by Kim Ki Duk, Crocodile demonstrates elements characteristic of most of his films, such as: the constant presence of the water element (in this case, the characters live on the river’s coast), the problems of the relationship between men and women (Young Pe perceive Hyun Joong not only as an object of desire), but also characters who are interested in drawing (Hyun Joong draws a portrait of the Crocodile). The drawings and crafts that appear in the film belong to the hand of the director himself ^[1] . In addition to these motifs, a “dumb” character appears in Crocodile, which will often manifest itself in subsequent works of Kim Ki Duk. Introducing such a character, the director aims to “explore the use of silent characters to discover new ways of“ speaking ”in the movies” ^[2] .

Cho Jae-hyung, who played the main role in the film, often appears in Kim Ki-Duk's early tapes as people violating the law in one way or another (“Wild Animals”, “Address Unknown”, “Bad Boy”).

According to the director, "Crocodile" was the first attempt to make a film in which "there are religious motives mixed with situations of self-harm and sin" ^[3] .

Crocodile (Eng.) On the Internet Movie Database