Flower Island

Three damaged women (a teen who's just given herself an abortion, a prostitute sick of her job, and an opera singer with throat cancer) meet by chance in mid-winter, deter each other from suicide and form a tenuous bond as they travel across Korea in search of a magic island where pain and sorrow can be exorcised. The highlight of the trip is running into an underground rock band (played by the actual band Uh-Uh-Boo), whose flamboyantly gay singer is the most credible character on screen. Song, a graduate from the Lodz Film School who won the Cannes Palme d'Or for his short Picnic, has gone for the kind of psycho-drama that excites extreme reactions, pro and con. But his decision to centre it on women (because they express pain better?) seems suspect, and there's a fundamental mismatch between the improvisational methods and the rigid conceptual framework.