Part of a recent wave of taboo-breaking provocations from Asia -- Takashi Miike's Audition and Jang Sun-woo's Lies were released around the same time -- Kim Ki-Duk's The Isle is a gruesome, gorgeous yarn that locates its fabulous tale of love and loneliness in a remote South Korean lake. The oasis, with its mysterious floating shacks and spectral fog, proves to be an indelible setting for Kim's taciturn psychodrama, not to mention a spectacular subject for the director's camera. Kim's assured editing builds a lulling, creepy rhythm, while the striking compositions and colors provide eerie counterpoint to the queasy scenario. Ostensibly centered around the perverse romance between mute Hee-jin (Suh Jung) and the addled Hyun-shik (Kim Yu-seok), The Isle's raison d'etre is, in fact, the bits of business that memorably punctuate Kim's abstracted love story. Boasting graphic scenes of bodily functions and self-mutilation, cynics can rightfully contend that the movie is nothing more than a compendium of shock tactics. Perhaps its most enduring image is that of Hyun-shik swallowing a handful of fishhooks, which Hee-jin then uses to reel him back in from the lake. A scandalous entry in the film festival circuit, where it reportedly caused walkouts among the squeamish, The Isle is clearly the work of a shameless provocateur, albeit an evidently gifted one.