Tender and rough in equal parts, Bin-jip excels in its presentation of two extremely silent characters when it comes to voice but extremely eloquent when it comes to actions.

Tae-suk (Hee Jae) is a young nomad who lives jumping from home to home, while those are vacated by their inhabitants. His apparently calm life is completely shaken when, in one of these houses, he finds Sun-hwa (Seung-Yun Lee), a young and beautiful woman who is being abused by his husband. In face of this situation, he finds himself with the dichotomy of either confronting the situation and help out the young lady or acting numb to it and moving along to a new residence.

The absolute highlight of the film is the nuances that both main characters are able to convey without any words whatsoever. The combination of writing, with the care in which the characters are emotionally developed as well as their reactions to the hurdles they face, and the acting of both Jae and Lee speak volumes on the feelings and humanity of their character’s personalities.

Tae-suk is not a simple hoodlum who invades homes and makes an usufruct of the things that surrounds him in these spaces. Sure, he will cook himself some food, grab a drink and take a shower but in exchange he will do something for the real residents in exchange such as doing their laundry, fixing a clock, or a radio, or a little toy. But the most precious thing that he will fix is the broken heart, soul, and spirit of Sun-hwa. Her seeming apathy and distrust towards Tae-suk will progressively evaporate as she will see that this stranger and maybe dangerous man does not mean any harm, not to her not to anyone at all.

These growing feelings to one another, accompanied by the delicate sound of an Arabic tune all throughout the film, are equally ratified by the looks that they give to each other. But this excellent acting is not only to show love, but also to show pain. Lee’s eyes are capable to convey all the pain, not only external but also internal, that she has had to endure from her husband while Jae’s sight is also spot on to express her apparent disappointment against the world that surrounds him, as well as his resilience against physical pain too.

But let’s address the elephant in the room, when watching some of the harshest moments in the film, highlighted in the abuse towards Sun-hwa. One cannot avoid wondering if its scaring realism is not due to the fact that Kim Ki-duk was accused in multiple occasions of physical and sexual abuse and misconduct by actors with whom he worked with. People could assume that the roughness, violence, and evilness of Min-gyu (the husband of Sun-hwa) is in fact a public exteriorisation of who Kim Ki-duk was in reality.

My (and I want to emphasise “MY”) only problem with the film would be its ending. Even though the film has a far-fetched and ludicrous nature from the beginning: premise (without any true explanation), the violence (its use of golf equipment), or the mechanics and way of living of Tae-suk. It is in its ending where this goes a bit too over the top for my own taste. I can understand the philosophical explanation and maybe even physical evolution in part, but it just seems like a movie that although exaggerate was enclosed to a certain realism finally decides in taking a more abstract turn in its very end to provide some closure.

In any case, except this only aspect, this is a quite captivating and touching movie. The fact that two characters with the capability to speak do not speak for the entire film, and not because of any physical impediment but, for personal choice and it gets the audience to buy into it is in itself marvellous. This, combined with the actual story that develops, both referring to social criticism and the purest and simplest of love tales makes it quite exceptional and for sure a worthy watch.