STOP - a plea to Kim Ki Duk

Not his greatest film by a long shot but still a very inspirational director.
Stop is Kim Ki Duk's plea to stop the insanity around the use of nuclear energy, even if it mean stopping the use of electricity? A rather drastic message but within the film we witness the more insipid dangers of nuclear accidents and radiation exposure. This is about the humans that survive but are exposed and what mutations/deformities will be received in the next generation. The film shows the results of two pregnant women after exposure to radiation, both are unfortunate but one is grizzly.
The major short coming of this film is that Kim Ki Duk made it by himself.
Well he had actors but no crew!

STOP - director and cast, who probably were also crew at times

I had the pleasure of hearing him and the actors speak at BIFF 2015 and one of the things he says is that he realises that there are short comings in the production values that hurt the film.
And it's true. What a difficult undertaking, it's hard enough making a low budget feature with a stripped back crew but as a one man band!!!! Wow.

Kim Ki Duk and fan doing a selfie

Australian director Ivan Seng is the only filmmaker that springs to mind that has successfully pulled this off and that was in 20012 with Toomelah which is a brilliant in it's seamless roughness.
But Stop doesn't quite cut it. Good idea, good to great acting but locations, props and even sometimes the coverage let the film down more than once or twice.
I still admire this director and I'll go along and see what he does next because when he hits it is in the big time but like all genius he is fallible and this is a case in point.

Tsubasa Nakae, principle actor post Q&A

To kim Ki Duk, STOP preaching from your soapbox and making films as a one man band and to the rest of the world STOP freezing him out of financing his films properly like a filmmaker of his standing deserves.

You can read my review for Filmed in Ether here