3-Iron — Module 01 questions and scene summaries
Questions for this day
There are no written questions for this day. Further, I would prefer that you not talk to students who have seen this film, or check summaries of this film, so I can ask you to speculate without that additional information. The question I want to ask: I made an argument that the nihilism of Beat Takeshi has an enormous impact on the course of the romantic narrative of Dolls. Given everything you can glean from this movie so far (music, behavior of the actors, whatever) where do you think this story is headed?
A second question for discussion: Why is Tae-suk fixing things? (That is, what larger meaning is this suggesting? In other words, "Because he is a nice guy" is not the answer I am looking for.)
What are the factors that lead to Sun-hwa's choice to join him on his motorcyle?
Scenes 1-7 summaries for “3-iron”
(spoiler alert)
DVD Scene 1 (0:00;00)
Credits. Quiet music, showing a golf ball hit into a net.
DVD Scene 2 (0:00;54)
An affluent neighborhood with a young man (Tae-suk) walking around placing advertisements on the door knobs. A car honks because the man's motorcycle is parked in front of his car. The man driving a large, expensive car, gives Tae-suk a condescending and unfriendly look.
Tae-suk goes to a different, less affluent neighborhood. He has placed an advertisement over the doors of the places there, too. He removes the advertisement and picks the lock, gaining entry.
Tae-suk looks around inside the rather clean apartment. He listens to the answering machine and checks the various rooms, smiles and takes off his shirt. Uses the bathroom, uses the toothbrush, uses the bath.
DVD Scene 3 (0:04;56)
After his shower, Tae-suk checks the closet, looking for clothes. Goes to the kitchen, checks the refrigerator for food, makes dinner. Walks around. Checks a toy gun; fixes it. Shoots balloons with it.
Begins taking pictures of himself in the house. Watches TV. Falls asleep on the couch in front of the TV. The next morning he does the dirty laundry of the house. Looks through a family photo album. Hears the family return.
DVD Scene 4 (0:07;59)
The family that has returned are unloading their car in the parking lot.
They return to the apartment (but Tae-suk is gone). The husband and wife are in a bad mood, arguing. The grade-school age son brings his gun, points it at his father, then his mother. She is in a terrible mood and challenges him to shoot her. He does but now, since the gun is working, she really is shot, perhaps in the eye. (We don't see.)
DVD Scene 5 (0:08;15)
Tae-suk is seen through the apartment window driving away. He returns to the affluence neighborhood; the advertisement is still on the door. He enters. There is a large garden in the back. He begins looking around the elegant house. There is a woman (Sun-hwa) looking withdrawn or victimized in the corner of the room but he does not yet see her. She has blood on her lip. He sits down to look at a magazine at the table in the living room (it is a photo collection of the woman we saw in the corner; semi-nude photos). The phone rings. The man says on the answering machine that he wonders if she is still angry. He wonders why she doesn't pick up. She looks dubiously from the crack between the sliding doors. He continues to berate her on the phone. Meanwhile, Tae-suk takes a picture of himself standing next to the very large photo of the woman on the wall.
He is in the kitchen preparing dinner; she looks from a distance at him.
He eats at the dining table, she watches from the staircase.
He beings to do the laundry (including her bra), cleaning the shoes very nicely. She continues to secretly watch. He mists the plants that are on the veranda of the back yard. He takes out a 3-iron and beings to practice golf against a net that stops the balls that he hits. He takes a bath, looking at the photo album while holding it under the water.
Out of the bath, he weighs himself but the machine is broken. He fixes it. He is still partially dressed from out of the bath. The woman secretly watches him. He weighs himself again, 65 kilo. Seems satisfied. After he leaves the room, the woman weighs herself, 45 kilo.
He is ironing the photo book to dry the pages. He does this carefully. The iron caresses the photo.
In bed, he is masturbating. She watches, rather openly. He sees that she is watching. They look at each other, then the phone rings again. It is the angry husband once more. He threatens that if she doesn't answer he will come there. She answers but says nothing. Meanwhile Tae-suk dresses quickly. She suddenly screams at her husband on the phone. They exchange glances.
DVD Scene 6 (0:15;40)
Tae-suk has left Sun-hwa, but he gets back on his motorcycle and returns to that house where she is.
He finds her in the bathtub, crying. He picks up her clothes, puts music on.
She hears it and gets out of the bath in a towel. He has laid out a pink dress ensemble on the floor for her, including the underwear. She puts these things on. He watches.
He taps or rolls a golf ball in her direction from a location out of sight, landing at her feet. She rolls it back towards where it came from. And he returns it.
DVD Scene 7 (0:18;17)
The husband car arrives at the house; he sees the motorcycle parked in front.
They are continuing with the golf ball game, but this time it is the husband whose feet catches it. He complains angrily to Sun-hwa that he couldn't get any work done on his trip because of her attitude. He grabs her, yells at her for wearing a dress he has told her not to wear. Then he pauses and apologizes. Tae-suk watches from outside. The husband tries to force himself on Sun-hwa; she resists. He slaps her and claims that she is trying to make him feel bad. Tae-suk starts to play golf outside.
The husband goes outside but Tae-suk begins hitting him with golf balls before he can call the police. Sun-hwa watches from inside the house.
He drives away; Sun-hwa considers helping her husband (he grabs her foot imploringly) but she pulls it away and gets on the motorcycle with Tae-suk.
DVD Scene 8 (0:22;17)
The two are at a lake. He is cleaning his motorcycle; she is looking at the lake.
They ride away down a city street.
They go to a nice apartment building. He is putting the advertisements on the doors; she helps.
He bores a hole through a golf ball; secures it with a wire, begins to hit the ball, which then spins around a tree trunk because it is secured there. Passers-by think it is going to hit them, but it is secure.
They return at night to the apartment complex.
DVD Scene 9 (0:24;01)
No one is at home; he breaks in and she enters with him. It seems to be a photographer's apartment. There are pictures of women. He listens to the answering machine, which explains that the dweller is away. Tae-suk puts on music. The girl is looking at a photo on the wall; it is her. It is a nude photo, tastefully done.
Tae-suk fixes the clock that is in the apartment while the woman continues to stare at her own photo.
He sleeps on the couch; she takes down the photo of herself and folds it.
In the morning he gets a drink out of the fridge and sees she has cut the photo into even squares, scrambled them, and reframed it.
She is in the bathroom doing laundry in the way that he always does laundry.
He cooks breakfast or soup. She hangs the laundry. They are like a couple, doing housework.
He serves her very gently and kindly. A nice meal. He goes to mist the plants while she eats.
The doorbell rings. A young woman is staring at the security video, then leaves when there is no answer.
Tae-suk takes pictures of himself with the photos on the wall. An attractive woman, then Sun-hwa's scrambled picture, then, for the next one, she includes herself in the photo.
The final shot fades them out of the scene; what remains is the empty apartment.
DVD Scene 10 (0:29;35)
They continue posting advertizements in a different neighborhood. They still have not exchanged a single word.
They drive to a park where he practices golf with the wired ball. She stands in front of it, showing that she trusts him, but he moves it away. He doesn't want to swing at her. She keeps moving in front of him. So he quits the golf.