He breaks and enters houses, but gives instead of taking away

Golf club - meditation stick or lethal weapon? For Korean filmmaker Kim Ki-duk, it all depends on who's wielding it. 3-Iron, a transcendent film about a free spirit who may in fact be a spirit, is a mesmerizing, offbeat, violent, playful yet serious parable about an uninvited house sitter whom some might call a squatter.

The central figure is a loner astride a motorcycle. This man with no name (Jae Hee) resembles a cross between Yao Ming and Keanu Reeves. His job is to hang take-out menus on the doorknobs of Seoul's swankier homes. If he comes back the next day and the menu is still there, it's a sign that the owners are away and he can play.

This nimble master of breaking-and-entering isn't a thief, exactly. He's more of a Zen tourist who vacations in people's homes while they are away. Yes, he eats their food and sleeps in their beds. But he also scrubs floors, does laundry, and tends houseplants. (No, he doesn't have a business card. And yes, sign us up!)

Is the mysterious stranger a sociopath or a monk on a mission? Even those familiar with the director's masterpiece, Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter . . . and Spring, may initially find it hard to imagine Biker Dude as an avenging angel, but that is precisely Kim's point. Judge a man not by the clothes he wears nor the snarl on his face nor the swagger in his gait, judge him by how he repurposes objects and people.

As this strangely endearing movie unfolds, Biker Dude increasingly comes to resemble a spiritual housecleaner, a figure who scours grout and souls. When he settles in at a villa in a particularly lovely Seoul suburb, Biker Dude (who never speaks) is discovered by a kindred spirit: an abused wife (Lee Seung-yeon, resembling Liz Taylor circa Suddenly, Last Summer) who speaks little.

The earthly world is heavy and harsh, but when Biker Dude and Abused Wife are together, they seem weightless - and so does Kim's unusual film.

Mostly told in a spare, lyrical style, 3-Iron is punctuated with brief moments of shocking violence, upsetting more for the sound than the image.

While this deliciously ambiguous film is open to various interpretations, I like to think it is about the challenge of finding balance between noise and silence, heaviness and lightness, this world and the next.

Contact movie critic Carrie Rickey

at 215-854-5402 or crickey@phillynews.com.

Read her recent work at http://go.philly.com/carrierickey.

3-Iron

*** (out of four stars)

Produced, directed and written by Kim Ki-Duk, photography by Jang Seung-back, music by Slvian, distributed by Sony Pictures Classics. In Korean with English subtitles.

Running time: 1 hour, 27 mins.

Sun-hwa. . . Lee Seung-yeon

Tae-suk. . . Jae Hee

Min-kyu. . . Kwon Hyuk-ho

Parent's guide: R (violence, nudity)

Playing at: Ritz Five and Ritz Sixteen/NJ