Was it the girl's daydream? Or is it me? (spoiler, maybe)

Actually, the day dream theory makes some sense considering how things wrap up. Still, I wonder why then the film portrays Tae Suk doing his thing before he meets Sun Hwa.
Interesting that you found the ending tragic; my initial feeling was that it was quite happy. You're right though. Realistically a truly happy ending would require Sun Hwa to be done with her monster of a husband altogether. Ah well...another ambiguous puzzle from Kim Ki-Duk. I wouldn't have it any other way.
The only thing I take issue with, herzbea, is the idea that men who don't immediately desire sex from a woman is "completely unrealistic." Sensitivity is not unhread of among all of us.
"of course, another explanation is that the movie is not a realistic one. "
Absolutely. This is certainly the case with most of the director's films. Just one example: In Address Unknown, a man commits suicide by driving his speeding motorcycle off the road and into a flat field where he lands head first in the dirt. His body is found (months or weeks?) later by his mother who must now thaw the ground with a huge fire to recover him. It seems totally implausible out of context that no one would have spotted this corpse in plain sight but, in the world of the film, it works.
If you haven't seen any other Kim Ki-Duk films, do. Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter....and Spring is available fairly widely in North America (I'm assuming such is the case in other parts of 'the west' as well), as are The Isle, Bad Guy and Samaritan Girl. All excellent.

I'm not going to claim to be a professional movie critic, but I understand why some people may feel this was simply a day dream of the woman and not a "reality" of the movie. However, I respectfully disagree.

The reason why I feel this movie is not a day dream is because when a character in the movie day dreams, it is usually "one-sided." For example, a "day dream" in a movie would involve the day dreamer in some way, shape, or form, and would not go into so much complexity and detail. This prevents the viewer from being confused as to what is reality and what is not (at least this is what I've seen so far in prior movies, I can be wrong). The way I have seen directors do this is by introducing the day dreamer as the main protagonist early in movies, and have them live "in their own world" from then on.

So in 3-Iron, if this was simply a day dream, I think the director would have introduced the woman first early in the movie as the main character, make the audience aware of her current situation, and then carry out the rest of the story through her personal "day dream." Instead, you have multiple scenes of the main character's life prior to his meeting with the woman, which gave me the sense this is actually "reality" in the movie because of its detail and complexity; the woman does not come into the movie until much later.

As to the final quote in the movie, "It's hard to tell that the world we live in is either a reality or a dream," I'm not too sure what to make of it, but I understand where you're coming from for the day dream point of view.

Here's a stretch: If this was a day dream, whose day dream was it?

0_0

It wasn't her day dream because you will remember that he has a bike and that the husband had to beep to get teh bike to move in the first place. So how can she have been daydreaming that?

It's something that Asian directors have worked out, you don't need to fill every second of film with speech, Kim Ki-duk is only one example, try watching the dubbed and subtitled versions of Miyazaki's films, it's like watching(well listening)to two completely different films.

Personally I think the Asian way is far more natural and real.

Back to the initial query, although the film is a fantasy I don't think you can interpret it as a dream. It isn't meant to be realistic.

Cheers Trev.

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