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South Korean filmmaker Kim Ki-duk won global fame with his bold portrayal of extreme violence
John MACDOUGALL
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Prize-winning South Korean film director Kim Ki-duk won global fame with his bold portrayal of extreme violence and human brutality in allegory-rich movies, but was also accused of abusing his actresses.
The controversy around the eccentric filmmaker -- who died of Covid-19 in Latvia on Friday at the age of 59 -- raises questions on how to view the cinematic assaults on women that are a hallmark of his films, and the line between fiction and reality.
Kim grew up in a poor family with a violent, Korean War-veteran father, left school at the age of 14 and worked odd factory jobs for years, leaving him with what he described as a "deep sense of inferiority".