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Critics like to label Kim Ki-duk as an ‘acquired taste’, and it’s not hard to understand why: the Korean arthouse director’s movies are always riddled with pseudo-mythical images that either blow away or turn off viewers completely. While individual response to any Kim picture will almost inevitably be divided, some of the regular criticisms – like his penchant for serving up a pastiche of images taken out of context from Eastern culture, or his characters’ all-too-ready retreat into self-mutilation to elicit an audience reaction – are again evident in Dream, his latest effort to examine the boundary of consciousness.

The film opens on an intriguing premise: a man (Odagiri Joe, the lone Japanese speaker in an all-Korean cast) struggles to get over his ex-girlfriend, and, by some cosmic connection, his increasingly erotic nocturnal fantasies are acted out by an unconnected, sleepwalking woman (Lee Na-yeong), who goes berserk when she finds out that she’s invariably going back, during her sleepwalks, to make out with the ex-boyfriend she claims to despise.

Interestingly, the story at first plays out like an offbeat comedy; one priceless moment comes when a therapist awkwardly suggests a solution to the pair: “How about falling in love with each other?” Although a touching love story seems to be lurking somewhere underneath, Kim’s antics quickly turn awry with his characters preoccupied in exploring ever sillier ways to stay awake. The director’s decision to take a solemnly unfunny turn in the final third of the film – going for a downward spiral of insanity and violence that makes a mockery of his contrived symbolism – is lamentable, if not entirely unexpected.

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