Oasis
Director: Lee Chang-Dong
Year Released: 2002
Rating: 2.5
A somewhat-retarded derelict - with a taste for rape and petty crime - falls for someone even more helpless than himself: a woman with cerebral palsy. The performance by Moon So-ri as the crippled woman is stunning, so whenever the movie shifts to her 'dream state' and the actress goes from crumpled and shaking to 'normal,' it's all the more jarring (though it does remind you it's a 'performance,' unlike, for example, Leonardo DiCaprio in What's Eating Gilbert Grape?) - Sol Kyung-gu, as her runny-nosed suitor, cannot stop making bad decisions and alienating the rest of his family. As a portrait of an 'unlikely couple' (the two first meet when Sol tries to rape her) it's more sensationalistic than plausible and not exactly what you could call 'romantic,' though after a particularly rocky opening I'll admit it does become more and more interesting in a train-wreck kind-of way.
