Moebius

It's impossible to look away -- not only because the sense of anticipation is so vivid, but because there's no other way to follow the bizarre plot than keep with it.

Even Oedipus would be left scratching his head by this bonkers but drily funny tale of one family's forlorn search for normality.

Kim rattles you with this family’s bizarre and pitiful plight, and only then, from a place of agonised discomfort, does the laughter follow, in great whoops and roars.

Following the self-importance of recent (and inexplicably prizewinning) films like Arirang and Pieta, however, Moebius feels like a giddy, playful return to form. It’s as uproarious as genital mutilation gets.

A sly dark comedy that doubles as a very impressive display of wordless storytelling.

What undermines Moebius is how Kim has let high concepts and philosophical subtexts run amok without anchoring them to a substantial narrative

The best word to describe it is strange, though it could have been halfway decent (yes, all the way up to halfway decent) if the third act hadn’t succumbed to the crescendo of craziness that had been building for the first hour.

Strange, attractive, dark and striking, but also very diffuse and slow, so that's a problem.

Like his earlier film PIETA, Kim Ki-Duk continues his rage into the Oedipal void. Mommy castrates her son and eats the organ. That's just the beginning in this over the top outrage of a film which eventually becomes an endless series of castrations and mutilations. Is it possible to make debauchery boring? Sadly, it is and MOEBIUS proves the point. One masterful touch--the film has no dialogue which in writing seems like total pretension but in execution is brilliant and totally appropriate.