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| Author’s screenshot from Cut. |
Three renowned directors with unique visions—one Japanese, one Chinese, and
one Korean—were invited to create short films for an anthology titled
Three... Extremes.
Beyond the number "three," the keyword here is "extreme," and the directors
fully lived up to that promise.
Park Chan-wook
contributed to the fray with a brilliantly executed psychological horror
designed to fray the nerves.
By this time, Park had already completed the first two films of his famous
"Vengeance Trilogy," and it seems he was deeply preoccupied with every aspect
of the revenge theme.
Cut is built around this
core, yet its philosophical, sociological, and psychological approach feels
perhaps even more concentrated than in his feature-length works.
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| Author’s screenshot from Cut. |
Cut allows for multiple
layers of interpretation. The surface layer tells the story of a film director
and his wife who are taken captive by an "extra"—a background actor who worked
on every one of the famous director's films but failed to achieve even a
modicum of recognition. His fundamental grievance is the pre-ordained
structure of the world, which separates the lower classes from the privileged
wealthy with impenetrable walls, leaving those below with nothing but a
frustration inherited from generation to generation.
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| Author’s screenshot from Cut. |
In this case, he is even infuriated by the subversion of the "cinematic justice" stereotype, which portrays the poor as good and the wealthy as evil—because the captured director is, by all accounts, a genuinely good man. The extra is a psychopath, so he devises a morbid test to examine his dilemma. The director is given a choice: either strangle the child in the room, or, for every moment of hesitation, the extra will cut off one finger of the director’s wife, who is a concert pianist.
Embedded in this absurd situation is their polemic—presented with a dryness
that stands in stark contrast to the horrific circumstances—in which roles are
reversed: the extra dictates, and the director tries to produce an adequate
"performance" through the various stages of the madman’s demands.
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| Author’s screenshot from Cut. |
We gradually descend into deeper circles of hell, learning secrets about the seemingly idyllic marriage and the extra’s other actions of the day. Naturally, at the moment of the seemingly inevitable end, something happens that perfectly twists the story. By then, it has long ceased to be just a socio-drama; it has become a parable carrying deep psychological problems regarding relationships and individuality, not devoid of sexual undertones. Meanwhile, Park Chan-wook, speaking through the director, voices sharp criticism regarding the "soap opera" female ideal represented by the wife, while male society does not escape exposure either.
Park Chan-wook opens with a female vampire scene; we soon learn that the fictional director is filming a movie titled Live Evil and enjoys incorporating the backdrop of his private life into his work. Just as the title Cut refers both to the removal of fingers and a cinematic command, the duality of reality and fiction dominates the film, reaching its culmination in the final scene. It is difficult to decide whether the physical world is truly reality or if we have been seeing the projection of "live evil" from the very first moment.
The film is not without humor, though it manifests in an increasingly chilling
manner. The story unfolds amidst grandiose sets that are exact replicas of the
director’s extravagantly designed apartment. The black-and-white checkered
floor serves as a chessboard for the game being played but also evokes the
iconic "Red Room" from David Lynch’s
Twin Peaks. Within this
space, Park Chan-wook dreamed up stunningly executed visual elements that
characterize the "playing field" assigned to each character. The entire visual
world is, as expected from Park, exquisitely aesthetic.
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| Author’s screenshot from Cut. |
In the role of the director, we see
Lee Byung-hun, who is
convincing in his initial "I find no fault in myself" state and particularly
powerful in the scenes of mental collapse. The extra is played by
Im Won-hee, whose
performance is entirely free from the stereotypes of depicting the "insane."
He is excellent in the humorous scenes and truly terrifying because he
approaches the execution of barbaric ideas in the most mundane manner. In the
role of the wife,
Kang Hye-jung performs
a difficult task; bound in a fixed pose, she can only act with her face, yet
she delivers a full-valued, memorable performance. Im Won-hee, as the
stranger, perfectly exhausts both tenets of the absurd: he provokes laughter
while being frighteningly ominous.
Interpretations and Spoilers
(Only read further if you have seen the film!)
Inevitably, several questions arise: Why don't the events take place in the
director's actual apartment? How and why do they end up in a film studio? Why
is there no blood when the fingers are cut? Where do the bonds holding the
director lead? We only see them stretching upward into infinity. Why does the
wife appear like a marionette? Who is pulling the strings?
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| Author’s screenshot from Cut. |
Possible Answers: If we consider the director's usual method of operation, we are seeing a "film version" of his private life in the studio; we are on a set the entire time, even if the crew is invisible. This explains the sudden revival of the already-dead extra just to ask a question: "What do you think about this, for example...?"
However, the deeper problem is the choice between the child and the wife. If we view the story as a parable, the entire sequence is the symbolic projection of an internal struggle. The extra—who was in every one of the director’s films yet remained forgotten—is perhaps his own embodied conscience. This is why he polemicizes with him with such strangely calm didactics. The sadistic game with the fingers might be the venting of ten years of unacknowledged hatred. The "good man" is revealed to be a hypocrite: love covers hatred, the idyllic relationship is empty, and both parties have long sought satisfaction elsewhere.
The husband feels that the superficial emptiness of the woman has taken over his life. This explains the wife’s marionette pose, in whose rigidity she is finally vulnerable to the husband’s decision. If the husband kills the child, the empty existence represented by the wife continues to flourish. If he does not, the woman’s world collapses.
But who is the child? The extra says he just stumbled upon him and brought him along. In his "confession," he says he killed his wife and wanted to kill his son but couldn't. This boy might be the child of the conscience—the child who represents our innocent self, the potential of our full human being. The conscience could not destroy this, so it offers it as a choice: will you sacrifice your true self to maintain your false present?
In the end, the director’s consciousness splits, which Park Chan-wook illustrates by doubling the surrounding space—reality and the film set blur. He speaks to the child while, in reality, he is strangling his wife. The parable always has a moral message, but Park Chan-wook doesn't close the story; instead, he shows that the evil within us can rise again at any time. "The world is full of things you can't escape... no matter how hard you fight... there are things you are forced to do."
If previously women following "soap opera values" were criticized, now it is the turn of the men. The hand of the "master of the house" tightens around the throat of the real woman while he tells his imagined wife, "I love you, honey!"
This article was originally written in Hungarian for Ricemegatron Expert Film Blog and subsequently translated into English for Ricemegatron Expert: Korean Screen Insights. The English version was created with the assistance of Gemini AI, focusing on preserving the original tone, structure, and critical style of the author.
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