The torn photos

It is something like a Karma which the director Ki-duk Kim dealt with in his later film "Spring Summer Autumn Winter And Spring"
I think it says no matter who the girl is, she will definitely end up tragically with that Guy.

It is his imagination of remeberance,the red girl stepped into the sea is his old lover who is very similar to the heroine.The guy just buried the their old torn photo at shore where his ex-lover had suicided.At first time the heroine just digged out some fragments and can't identify the people in it, and in the end, she digged out all of them and understood why the guy loved her so much.

i think that the photos never existed. it seemed weird how when she taped them to the mirror, sunhwa and hungi's eyes would always be looking right at each other through the glass, perfectly alligned with the pictures. doesnt that seem a little unrealistic? it seems it was all planned right? from sunhwa's perspective, she's looking at the pictures. she has no idea that it's a double sided mirror and that someones behind it for that matter. I dont think hungi knows what the photos are of either, he just looks through them because sunwha's face is on the other side, through the missing pieces. this makes me think that the photos were just used as a device by the filmmaker to show both charactors' feelings without using the characters themselves to show their feelings for each other, making the point very subtle.

although she hates hungi for forcing her into prostitution, she still harbors some feelings for him. out of everyone in the redlight district, he seems to be the only one that has a sincere disposition in front of her. unlike that other guy that said he liked her and stuff, hungi cannot show his feelings for sunhwa through words--only body language and actions.

before they arrive at the beach for the first time, sunwha walks through the city and hungi follows her in a car. this is the first appearence of the girl in the red dress. the girl in the red dress is sunhwa later in the movie after hungi releases her. remember how sunhwa gets freed and walks on forever and hitching a ride from the trucker? she ends up walking to the beach and drowns herself. when the guy stabs hungi, he actually dies. when he wakes up, it's more like... an alternate ending to the movie.

the movie really ends when he gets stabbed. hungi dies, sunhwa commits suicide.
the alternate ending carries on when hungi awakens and meets sunhwa at the beach. their love for each other is shown when sunhwa put her head on hungi's shoulder and he put his arm around her. the reason for the continuing prostitution is because once sunhwa has become used to being a prostitute, she cannot continue with a normal life anymore. she's already used to the prostitution as shown in that one scene where that guy comments on how sunwha liked the sex and when she gives sex for a ride to the beach. the ending shows how once sunhwa's becomes a prostitue, she will always be a prostitute and how hungi will always be a pimp; showing that the true nature of life is a cyclic existence.

furthermore, the picture shows them wearing the red dress and the flannel shirt, clothes they had purchased after they "died," showing the impossibility of the photos.

after a few hours of thinking about it and also being baffled by the pics, etc., here's my take:

the Thug actually died when his friend stabbed him TWICE in the gut with the knife (that the Thug buried). as we saw, he (and, presumably the audience) was surprised that he was still alive. he had seen the pieced together pics in Her room on the mirror and walked to the clothing store to pick out the same shirt in the photo, so as to become that person. the Girl does the same, when she goes to buy the red dress, then they meet on the beach.

when Thug took her there the first time, notice that we did not see the Suicide Girl's face. it was actually Thug's Girl, in a metaphorical scene. Red Dress was actually Thug's Girl committing suicide after the death of her captor/protector.

the final scenes were the last thoughts of both parties and the fact that Thug continued to whore her out was his only way to relate to and/or show/feel love for her.

so, ultimately, they both died and what we saw were their last thoughts in a kind of combined manner.

that's my theory and i'm sticking to it!

Paul Sorrells

The dirctor does emphasize that pimps and whores though lower class in Korea are still people who have their own dignity. So it is sort of a union of the classes when the college girl falls for the low class pimp. People have a hard time accepting that, so they want a different explanation. Taken literally, the pimp doesn't die afer all, and they do spend their days out whoring on the road.

The karma theory does seem to be the only way to explain the photos. That they were past lovers reunited in this incarnation. That is why he kisses her in the beginning and why she eventually falls for him.

Having read all interpretations, here's mine.

First of all, the Bad Guy (as named by the film) falls in love instantly when he first sees her but actually, can't win her heart by seduction...the only kiss he gets is violently stolen.

He lures her into prostitution to have an eye on her...and as a prostitute, she isn't owned by her partners but by her pimp. Nevertheless, the bad guy doesn't clearly accept the fact that that way, he's "dirtying" her. As shown by her first client stopped before "action" and her second being beaten violently.

Now for the beach scene and the photo's, I too believe that the drowning girl is some sort of "pure" form that dies as she understands that she can't escape. The photo's doesn't exist too. They are symbols for what will be her new life with the bad guy...but doesn't accept it for now. This is shown by the missing faces.

The scenes with the eyes and faces through the holes int the photo's shows that she's slowly beginning to understand...and explains why she visits BG in the prison and crying for his return.

From the Bad guy's side, he's hopeless. He awaits death as a liberation (in the prison though he's showing rebellion when the guards come to hang him). He frees the girl that finally shows her "love" by taking his hand but he refuses this relation. When he beats his wingman, he yells for himself that there is no love for a guy like him...and awaits death again when his wingman stabs him.

And for the end, it's a bit ambiguous. Saying he dies is a good idea...but then how can the "truck prostitution" be explained because for me, these last scenes are real. Maybe can we say that he's surviving just because he has finally understood that there is some kind of love for him too.
He owns her love (she even accepts to sell her body to prove that love)

Keep pulling the sweater. The lady in red is a harbinger, guardian angel, or whatever fits. The lady in red who suicided was the same lady who gave the college girl the sweater after college girl ran away and was walking aimlessly through town. Watch the sweater scene again. The face of the lady in red was not shown and college girl gave no reaction to getting the sweater. But the sweater was real. The lady who walked into the sea was symbolic perhaps, but the torn photograph was real.