Samaritan Girl (Samaria) (Por Amor o Por Deseo) [*Ntsc/region 4 Dvd. Import-latin America] (Spanish subtitles)

It's an other author movie by Kim Ki-Duk. So if you can't stand psychologicial movies with a lot of silences, this isn't a movie for you. The movie is following a teenage girl. She lives alone with her dad who is also a cop. She seems to have trouble with accepting her sexuality and wants go to a trip in France with the friend she's in love with. But for paying their plane tickets, her friend decide to prostitute herself with old men, while she's organise that. She gradually get jealous of the men her friend encounter until her friend died from an accident. Then her mind breaks and the problems affect her life and her dad's life.I think it's a real good movie that make you think about many things.

One of these days when I’m snowed in I might watch it all but no probably not

Ok....not the greatest.

Samaria (Samaritan Girl) (Ki-duk Kim, 2004)Ki-duk Kim makes very beautiful movies that, in the main, I have never found myself able to connect with; I can appreciate films like Seom or Nabbeun Namja, but while watching them I could never find an in to emotionally bond with any of the characters. Samaria is the first Ki-duk Kim movie I've seen where I found that--though I never did get over my amusement that much of the connection I ended up feeling to our two main characters is lifted from what I am choosing to think of as Kim's extended homage to Takeshi Kitano's Sonatine, released a decade before--and as such, I simply liked it better than any of the Kim flicks I've had a chance to take in to date.Netflix's plot synopsis makes it seem like the first half-hour of the movie is actually all the important bits, so let me set the record a little straighter--yes, the first bit of the movie focuses on amateur prostitute Jae-young (Yeo-reum Han in her first screen appearance--she would work with Kim again the next year in The Bow) and her friend/manager Yeo-jin (Wishing Stairs' Ji-min Kwak), who wrestles with the ethics of the thing even while planning to reap the benefits (Jae-young got into the game in order to be able to afford for both of them to be able to take a trip to Europe the next summer). Tragedy strikes when Yeo-jin is momentarily distracted, and Yeo-jin is left trying to understand Jae-young's assertions that she liked, and felt close to, the men who paid her. Yeo-jin feels compelled to travel the same path in order to come to some sort of understanding--but when her father, Yeong-ki (H's Eol Lee), finds out, bad things start happening as Yeong-ki, in turn, takes the first steps to understanding where his daughter is coming from. At the risk of a minor spoiler: approximately the final third of the film takes place on what ends up being a bungled trip to visit Yeong-ki's wife's grave that strands the two of them in the (very beautiful) middle of nowhere; this is the portion that I referred to above as an extended homage to Sonatine (but without the Yakuza angle).As should be--hopefully-obvious from the description above, Samaritan Girl is ultimately a movie about people who are so broken they no longer have any way of communicating with those around them. (Figurative representations of Hee-jin's literal muteness in Seom; lack of communication is a frequent theme of Kim's.) However, they don't realize they're broken until something horrible befalls them (or, in the case of Yeong-ki's relationship with his wife specifically, a good amount of time after something horrible befalls them, like her death). The main thrust of the movie--its main point of conflict, if you will--is Yeo-jin and Yeong-ki trying to even define what's wrong with their relationship, but without realizing anything is Yeo-jin is far too distracted by her quest to give any thought to her relationship with her father at all; Yeong-ki thinks, at least until he finds out what's going on, that he and his daughter have a normal relationship. (And here, of course, is the crux of the matter: we have to ask ourselves, given the limited information given to us, whether he does, and if so, whether Kim is casting aspersions on the current "normal" human mode of relationships; this is certainly not out of the question.) I'm not sure what the difference is between this and the other Kim movies I've seen, but here we had characters who were relatable, even in the odd situations into which Kim flung them on a regular basis, and more to the point, likable despite/within their flaws. And, it should go without saying, this too is a very pretty film, like everything Kim does. But there is more substance here, at least it seemed so to me. *** ½

Very good movie. A little sad but entertaining.

Not to mention the worst plot ever regarding prostitution.I admit "Bad Guy" was a bit out there but that was a brilliant film regarding the life of a prostitute. The woman hated what she was being forced to do and she hated herself for having to do it. In the end the life she is forced to live turns her into what she never thought she would be.This film on the other hand is ridiculous. Two girls decide to start a prostitution business because they want to go on a trip to Europe? Are you freaking kidding me? Deuce Bigalow had a better reason to sell his body than this. The main thing to hate about this movie is that the characters aren't realistic. They treat their little business like it's selling girlscout cookies and in the end reality is brought in when one of the girls takes a turn for the worse.That's when the movie just detaches itself completely from logic. The girl who pimped her friend had a good home. A loving home where her father did all he could for her. Made her breakfast in the morning, drove her to school, kept up with her school affairs. ETC. She wasn't rich and she wasn't poor either. She had no reason or any real motive to sell her body herself other than the silly one the film provides.Most women prostitute themselves because they run away from a bad home and they have no where to turn to they get swept up in the street life. This movie isn't stimulating at all. It makes prostitution look like a bake sale then tries to be serious and philosophical about it all. This movie is great to watch for anyone that doesn't know anything about real prostitution. To them it probably seems like a realistic story. To those that do it's like watching a fairytale. A movie about a girl that wants to become a prostitute because she wants a dream vacation or she wants to cure her grief. GIVE ME A BREAK!1 Star because this film couldn't be further from reality. There's other films based around good girl gone bad ideas like this that are far worth your time if you want something that's more realistic. Otherwise this is another made for the movies film that takes real life issues and strings them into fantasy.It's not so much that I think this movie is trash. As a drama it's fine...it's just that I don't like when a drama movie takes reality and turns it into fantasy.