This movie was on a list of psychological thrillers that were "must see" and that is the reason why I watched it. This is my review of said film.
For those of you that know me and my musings you are already aware of the fact that I am a big fan of Korean cinema. That being said, this was not one of Korea's finest works. As an avid horror film watcher, this film well, was just average at best.
_film_poster.jpg)
The basic premise of the movie is that a bunch of people in their late 20's are getting together with a teacher they all had together as young children because she is dying and because I suppose (it isn't stated explicitly) they want to go. The teacher's ailment is not stated specifically and for the most part she seems to be a nice person and the students actually like her and choose to go to the reunion as they are not forced to do so. They are not there for very long before it is revealed that ALL OF THEM seem to have been traumatized in one way or another by this very woman they are meant to be honoring.
Once the reunion starts though, things start to go badly really fast.
This is where the film rubbed me the wrong way: these people don't seem to like one-another very much and they almost entirely have bad memories of the teacher that the gathering is meant to be in honor of anyway. This begs the question : "why did you come?"
They fight almost immediately with eachother, and even say some nasty things to the teacher who has invited them there in the first place, yet no one (all of which arrived by car) decide to get back in said cars and leave.
At some point in time everyone gets too worked up emotionally and takes a solo trip to the beach area where they are kidnapped and killed in a gruesome fashion via some heroically strong individual whose identity is not revealed intentionally but is extremely reminiscent of "Jason" from "Friday the 13th."
The film has all the usual nuances of horror films that piss me off such as
- tripping over stuff whilst running away from just whatever
- no cell phone coverage and land lines are cut off magically
- picking up of flashlights that of course are poorly functioning
- people in a position to easily flee (in their own cars) don't do so but instead just sit somewhere for some reason
- everyone needing some "alone time" for various reasons
This movie was made in 2006 so it isn't exactly ahead of the bar as far as gore and what not is concerned because "Saw" had already been released 2 years prior and that seems to be really the only thing this film was going for.
I quite like Seo Young-hee, the perhaps 2nd leading actress in this movie, and she did a really good job but the movie just isn't good.
There is a twist of sorts (near the end)which is traditional in Korean movies, but by the time the twist happens in this movie you neither care nor are terribly surprised as much as you are annoyed seeing as how you expected the villain to be extremely strong based on feats of strength that were already performed.
The trailer is actually much better than the movie
my rating? not worth watching