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A mountain man beheads his many wives to prove his love to an alluring woman he meets in an enchanted forest.

In 19th-century China, seven year old girls Snow Flower and Lily are matched as laotong – or “old sames” – bound together for eternity. Isolated by their families, they furtively communicate by taking turns writing in a secret language, nu shu, between the folds of a white silk fan. In a parallel story in present day Shanghai, the laotong’s descendants, Nina and Sophia, struggle to maintain the intimacy of their own childhood friendship in the face of demanding careers, complicated love lives, and a relentlessly evolving Shanghai. Drawing on the lessons of the past, the two modern women must understand the story of their ancestral connection, hidden from them in the folds of the antique white silk fan, or risk losing one another forever.

Kim Ki-Duk's second film is the story of two illegal immigrants in Paris, a North-Korean former soldier and a South-Korean street painter, as they both struggle for survival in the French metropolis. Eventually, they develop a strong friendship whilst their association with the local underworld will have dramatic effects on their lives. Definitely not equal to the director's latter efforts, but nonetheless charming and bitter-sweet, the film contains clear evidence of the unique style Kim Ki-Duk would eventually develop. Set in the streets of Paris, where the director had previously studied arts and worked as a street painter (just like one of his main characters).