AllMovie

Young Japanese director Lee Sang-il's first feature comes on the heels of the unexpected success of a short film he made as a student called Blue Chong, which became a long-running hit in a Tokyo theater. While his short film directly dealt with the issues of ethnic Koreans living in Japan, Border Line, instead of addressing the issue directly, uses the feelings of displacement and alienation Lee grew up with as a third generation Korean-Japanese to comment on the generalized alienation of contemporary life in Japan. He has a generous sympathy for all of the pained characters who populate the film, and he shoots it in a distanced, deliberate style that speaks of a familiarity with the films of Yasujiro Ozu, who explored similar themes in his own work. Lee is not as rigorous a formalist as Ozu, however, and the film's slow pace doesn't always work. Because Lee cuts continually between story lines, it takes a while to get a feel for the characters. The influence of Robert Altman can be felt in this fragmentary structure, but where Altman, an experienced director, can make it work to great effect in films like Nashville and Short Cuts, Lee's inexperience shows in his occasional inability to keep the pace going or create sparks when the story lines intersect. Flaws and all, Border Line is a promising debut. Lee's talent shows through; it just needs a bit of refining.