South Korean independent film “Isle of Snakes”, which was released in local theaters a few years after it was premiered at the 2023 Busan International Film Festival, alternatively baffled and intrigued me. While simply starting with three broad characters stuck in one mysteriously isolated location, the movie often caught me off guard with a series of odd moments, but it also mesmerized me with a lot of mood and beauty to be savored. To be frank with you, I still have no idea on what it is exactly about, but I also admire how it is about nonetheless, and that makes the movie fairly interesting in my humble opinion.

Although it does not show or tell much about its setting, the movie gradually lets us gather its specific period background at the beginning. It is around the middle of the war between Korea and Japan in the late 16th century, and its three main characters are sailors who worked in a warship belonging to the Korean Navy. After their warship was sunken due to a typhoon, they find themselves stranded on a small, uninhabited island, and they have no choice but to wait for any possibility of rescue at least during next several days.

Fortunately for these three able-bodied seamen, the island is not barren at all. While they can get some supply of clean water to drink, they also can find several edible things including mushrooms and fish around the island. At one point in the story, a jar of alcohol is discovered by one of them, and that naturally leads to a little merry night among them.

And we get to know a bit about these three dudes. While Chang-ryong (Kim Ki-tae) is an artilleryman, Mong-hwi (Lee Sang-hoon) is a rower, and Kkeock-soe, who is incidentally the youngest one in the bunch, is sometimes a bit too simple-minded in his behaviors. Needless to say, his foolish deeds annoy both Chang-ryong and Mong-hwi from time to time, and that leads to some amusing comic moments to tickle us.

However, Chang-ryong and Mong-hwi cannot help but become more despaired as being reminded again and again of how hopeless the situation is for them and Kkeock-soe. They keep trying to reach for any chance for rescue day by day, but they only find themselves still struggling in their continuing ennui. As observing how their conversations go nowhere in an increasingly repetitive pattern every day, you may be reminded of Samuel Beckett’s classic absurdist play “Waiting for Godot”. In fact, you will not be that surprised when they later find themselves getting quite confused about how long they have actually been stuck in the island.

Meanwhile, the movie also tries some surreal stuffs to flabbergast you for good reasons. Not long after the skeletal remains of some woman is found by Kkeok-soe, a number of strange things occur around him and his two colleagues, and it looks like they meddled with something disturbing in the island. At first, they are amused a bit just because of how things have been quite uneventful for them, but then they come to feel more that they need to get out of the island as soon as possible.

Although it never clarifies what is exactly hovering over the island, the movie continues to hold our attention with its vivid atmosphere filled with natural beauty to admire. Director/writer Kim Eu-min, who incidentally made a feature film debut here in this film, and his crew fill the screen with numerous stunning visual moments, and their vast scale often emphasizes the increasing sense of isolation surrounding the main characters in the film. Around the point where the story reveals a bit more of whatever is lurking inside the island, the movie goes for more surrealistic mood, and there is even an utterly phantasmagorical sequence clearly inspired by those Korean traditional lacquerwares decorated with mother-of-pearl.

Despite frequently being quite elusive and ambiguous, the movie also shows a surprising amount of lightweight humor along the story – especially in case of several key scenes involved with Kkeok-seo, who somehow reminds me of that weird boy in Cormac McCarthy’s novel “Suttree”. Due to his careless handling of his toenails, something quite weird happens to him later, and you will enjoy how the movie pushes his situation further for more amusement.

The main cast members keep their acting straight while also sounding fairly convincing in their dialogues, which are heavily ridden with old dialects (The movie thankfully provides the subtitle for me and other South Korean audiences, by the way). While Lee Chung-bin is certainly the showiest member in the bunch, Kim Ki-tae and Lee Sang-hoon are equally solid in their respective parts, and the comic chemistry between these three good actors is one of the main reasons why the movie can engage us to the end. As another substantial part of the film, Jeon Hee-hyeon has a little fun during one particular scene where she plays three different figures at once, and her solid performance adds some spookiness to the story.

In conclusion, “Isle of Snakes” is a rather challenging arthouse film, but it is filled with enough style, mood, and humor for keeping us interested up to its finishing point. Even at this point, I am not totally sure about a lot of things in the movie, but it was a fairly interesting experience, and I think it is more successful than “Esper’s Light” (2024), another recent South Korean film which also baffled me a lot. While the latter left me feeling rather empty and hollow in the end, the former left me feeling somehow satisfied and entertained enough, and I am already willing to revisit it for admiring more of how it is about.