PULGASARI (1985) - it came from North Korea!

PULGASARI
(1985, North Korea)

Bought this on VideoCD hoping to see a lost giant monster classic, but on reflection it's better off lost. Hard to see a nice presentation of this, since it's from North Korea, and it only crept out of the country in 1998. Not hard to see why, and I'm a fan of 'men in rubber suits stomping on toy tanks' genre.

It's a crazy story set in Korea 1000 years ago, when an evil Emperor kept his people in place with an iron fist. Boo! Well, the downtrodden people pray for help and up pops baby Pulgasari, who just loves eating iron fists. In fact, the more iron it eats, the bigger it gets, until it towers over the Emperor's army and eats his guns. The downtrodden populus then have to figure out how to get rid of the monster…

This may sound more fun than it is. There's a long wait for the monster action to kick in, especially since the first monster is tiny (a mixture of glove puppet and man-in-suit in overscaled sets), then man-sized (man-in-suit in man-size sets), before turning gigantic (man-in-suit in tiny scale sets, Godzilla-style). The young monster is fairly childish, acting a lot like the Son of Godzilla (1967) - which cinematically, is not a good look.

Actually, the big-guy suit is very robust and detailed, and the models he stamps on are huge and well-made (thanks, apparently, to a Japanese FX team). But the action is uninteresting and there's a lack of interaction with the actors. When the monster isn't around, the human sets look low enough to be for TV, a lot like The Water Margin used to look. The wigs and fake facial hair look like TV standard as well, making it all very hard to take seriously.

Added to that, it's trying to portray land-owners and kings as bad people - a monster movie as communist propaganda, this is precisely the sort of film the McCarthy commission warned would happen!


The Thai VideoCD I watched was presented in an aspect ratio best descibed as '4x3 squashed'. It was dubbed cheaply into Thai, with the music & fx obliterated by any added Thai dialogue, with no attempt to mix it in.

Not much fun to be had, though there's a much more interesting story about the making of the film, and how Kim Jong-Il oversaw the kidnapping of a South Korean movie director, in order to make several films for him, including this one!
Here's a detailed account of the real-life story...

I talk about more Korean giant monsters, old and new, in this article here.

If you really want to sample Pulgasari's dubious delights, I recently discovered that the entire film, English subtitled, is on Google Video…

There's also more Pulgasari facts and screengrabs here at Stomp Tokyo.


I can't find the VCD online anywhere, but Japan released it on DVD in 2004.

THE DOLL MASTER (2004) - mainstream Korean horror

THE DOLL MASTER
(2004, South Korea, IMDB: Inhyeongsa)

Region 3 NTSC Hong Kong DVD (from Winson Entertainment)

Not all Korean horrors are gloomy, extreme, perplexing and non-linear. This is a good-looking mainstream horror full of good-looking actors. My only reservation is that while it doesn’t pull its punches, it should have been much, much creepier…

Plotwise, if Stuart Gordon had made Dolls (1987) in South East Asia, he’d probably have ended up with something very similar to this.

It's also surprising that nothing similar has been made in Japan, where doll mania is regularly the rage. Life-size adult dolls with full wardrobes are on sale as companionship surrogates, highly sophisticated sex dolls can also be tailor-made, girls dress like dolls, people collect dolls, and then there's the nation's obsession with lifelike robots...


Anyhow, I rewatched The Doll Master because I really liked the premise and the look of the film, and discovered it had more than a little comedy than I remembered, at least to start with, before the body count kicks in.

A group of youngsters are invited to a famous doll-maker’s mansion. (You guessed it, it's up in a forest and everyone's mobiles are out of range.) If they’re lucky, one of them will be honoured with a doll crafted in their image. All of them are relaxed, except for one girl who’s a little too old to be nursing an impeccably dressed doll.


The doll-maker shares his house with a wheelchair-bound sculptress. Together they make incredibly life-like dolls, in all scales. The main hall has a display wall, filled with impeccably dressed tiny mannequins.


Creepier still is the use of full-sized dolls in the furnishing. In each of the guest bedrooms is a figure, one emerging from a wall to hold a mirror, another built into the ceiling to hold the chandelier. You could almost think they were alive… The look of the sets and particularly the hall look impressive and modern, rather than the traditional gothic.

Hae-mi also keeps seeing a girl in red dress running around the grounds. What she hasn't seen is the prologue, which introduced us to a man who fell in love with a doll, and murdered his wife just so he could be with it all the time. He was strung up for his crime before the titles rolled.


The Scooby Doo cast of characters are amusing but not overdone. There’s enough twists in the story, even a little gore, but not nearly enough scares considering how creepy dolls should be. Perhaps it’s more frightening for those who can’t stand dolls.

Actress Yu-Mi Kim as Hae-Mi particularly impressed me with her prolonged and sustained level of realistic hysteria! She was previously a star in another South Korean horror hit, Phone.


The Doll Master is currently available in Hong Kong, with 5.1 Korean sound and good English subs as well as the Chinese language options. It’s also out on DVD in the UK, but the US release is now going out of print and harder to track down.

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WISHING STAIRS (2003) - WHISPERING CORRIDORS 3

WISHING STAIRS
(2001, South Korea)

Frustrating and not recommended

To complete my reviews of this haunted schoolgirl series, I’ve watched the third Whispering Corridors film, Wishing Stairs. It was a real slog to get through this one. There's some nice touches, but there’s too much wrong with it to recommend it to anyone but completists.

The actual pivotal setting of the wishing stairs (a similar location was glimpsed in the first film) is a reasonably spooky premise. If you wish hard enough as you climb the 28 steps, the 29th will magically appear and your wish will be granted. Of course, you’d expect that nothing like this in a horror film is without a price, and when the DVD has a spooky cover you’d expect the price to be something nasty.

But what actually happens in the film is very tough to follow - not because of an innovative narrative structure, like Memento Mori, but because the storytelling is quite poor. There’s a long slow build-up as we meet several schoolgirls, two of which are vying for a single place in ballet school. So-hee and Jin-sung are very close friends (but not that close). The other main character is an eccentric, overweight girl seemingly unconnected to the ballerinas. The overplaying of both her eccentricities and fatness for comedy effect, really doesn’t work.


For nearly half the film, all we get is several feeble scares, all caused by the girls creeping up on each other. Then the supernatural element finally kicks in - or does it? The fat girl suddenly loses weight after saying that she used the wishing stairs, but we only have her word for it, and we also see her gobbling diet pills.

One ballerina wishes for first place in a competition (to win the place in ballet school) and shortly afterwards an accident cripples her main rival (again this is not a supernatural incident). As she uses the stairs, she appears (from a distance) to hover on the non-existent 29th step – which has been portrayed, in posters, as a girl hanging from a tree at the top of the steps, or a noose, but these doesn’t appear in the film).


Then, confusingly, and offscreen, her friend dies. But we only see the body in a nightmare – we’re not even sure it happened.

It's not until the fat girl takes centre stage and wishes for the dead girl to return, that something definitely spooky happens, I think. But during this wish, the 29th step appears to be real and not invisible. The resulting haunting could also be a result of her dementia.

The continuously baffling storyline, and the feeblest motivation for a murder (“you’re in my chair!”), made me suspect that we were in the hands of inexpert filmmakers. With important events not being shown, choppy editing, particularly towards the end, all topped off with a painful rip-off of the TV scene in Ring, indicated a script scrabbling for ideas.


Looking around for help from other reviewers to explain the plotline confirmed this. There was no one who could describe the story precisely, step by step, it's so muddled. The only person I could find who was able to explain the characters’ motivations was someone on IMDB who’d watched all the extra documentaries on a DVD! But the film should tell the story, not the bonus material.

It’s a shame that this is easily available on DVD in the US and UK, but Voice (part 4) is not. Possibly the poor returns from 3 has made 4 a harder sell.

So, please, watch all the other films in the series before going near this one. As I've said, you can watch any of the films on it's own, and in any order. South Korean sequels are apparently related by theme, rather than storyline (like Chan-wook Park's Vengeance trilogy).

WHISPERING CORRIDORS - Black Hole review here
MEMENTO MORI - Black Hole review here
VOICE - Black Hole review here

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MEMENTO MORI (1999) WHISPERING CORRIDORS 2

MEMENTO MORI
(1999, South Korea)

Two schoolgirls fall in love with each other, and are not about to hide the fact. An accident, or is it suicide, or murder? leaves one of them haunting the school and causing chaos... The discovery of her diary might hold the key to what happened.

What could have been just a retread of the first film, Memento Mori, sometimes called Whispering Corridors 2, now stands on its own, almost seperate from the rest of the series. While 1 was a good horror, 2 is a good film. It’s hard to classify, it’s good as a drama, it also delivers shocks, and is not without a little blood...


Beloved in South Korea, as evidenced by the huge recent 6 disc Ultimate Edition boxset, Memento Mori is also considered internationally as a good example of South Korean cinema. Successful for its portrayal of defiant characters, school life, and a girl-girl love affair.

It also revels in non-linear storytelling – a narrative form that has vexed some viewers of SE Asian cinema. For example, the back and forth storylines of Ju-On had to be toned down for the western remake as The Grudge. Many South Korean films use this fractured form at present. Memento Mori is so playful that you can almost make up your own story with all the scenes – but there aren’t too many clues as to what order they’re supposed to be in. By the end, I was doubting that the story had been in any sort of order from the very start, with scenes from dreams and fantasies thrown in as well.

From the underwater opening (a nightmare?) you soon know that this is a beautiful-looking film, and that not every scene is included for plot, but for mood. Two schoolgirls, an athlete Yoo She-eun, and a pianist Min Hyo-shin are in love. Gawky classmate, So Min-ah, finds her diary - a strange collection of poems, and pictures. As she reads it, we sometimes see the incidents the pages refer to. She discovers that the girls have been meeting in secret on the school roof.


But then we see an accident, a fatal one. Through clues in the diary and flashbacks from other girls and teachers we get a better idea of what caused it. At the same time, her ghost is stalking the school in search of the diary. As more people sense her spirit, and gossip why she’s dead, panic eventually grips the school…


This is easy to recommend as an interesting film, by two creative directors full of ideas. The lesbian storyline is probably new and strong stuff for South Korea, although it’s sensitively handled and not exploited (that’s if you ignore the bathtub scenes excised from the director’s cut – but these are still without nudity). The teacher’s treatment of pupils is shocking, part of the first film’s ‘tell it like it is’ attitude.

Technically, the cinematography makes the whole film very easy on the eye, and interesting – like the series of hospital visitors all reflected in an eyeball – I don’t think this scene was faked, just cleverly shot. The production was all shot on location, on a low budget and is slightly rough-edged. The most obvious sign being the few special effects are quite poor. But they somehow don’t spoil it at all. The acting of the young cast, the direction and the cinematography make it memorable. Together with the beautiful and mournful soundtrack, it’s even haunting.

The climax is maybe overlong and more successful for what's heard (screaming, thunder, music) rather than what happens. It successfully portrays being in the middle of a panic-stricken situation. The confusing structure of the film are is the only other weakness. But that makes it more of a mystery. It’s a drama, but has enough cheeky shocks to keep ghost fans happy, if not horror fans.


Having enjoyed the Hong Kong region 3 DVD (pictured at top), I then purchased the Korean 6-disc (5 DVDs) Ultimate Edition at a very reasonable price - a boxset that can only be kept in a box! There’s an excellent transfer of the film with English subtitles on disc 1. While the rest of the set is unsubtitled. Except for one of the director’s early films, also set in school, also exploring the problems that young lesbians face in society, also starring a rather more boyish-looking star of Memento Mori. Disc 2 has the three-hour director’s rough cut. Disc 3 behind the scenes. Disc 4 earllier short films. Disc 5 is an HDTV tranfer included as an MPEG, disc 4 is a CD soundtrack. There’s also a hardback replica of the diary included, but without the pills tucked into the spine…

I'm pleased to say that the film is now also available on region 1 and region 2 DVDs, misleadingly under the Tartan Asia Extreme banner label.


So far in the Whispering Corridors series...

WHISPERING CORRIDORS (1998) Black Hole review here

MEMENTO MORI (1999)

THE WISHING STAIRS (2003) Black Hole review here

VOICE (2005) Black Hole review here

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WHISPERING CORRIDORS (1998) first in the series

WHISPERING CORRIDORS

(1998, South Korea, imdb: Yeogo goedam)

First in the series of haunted schoolgirl movies

Reviewed from a Region 3 NTSC Hong Kong DVD

Right at the start of the Japanese horror-boom, Whispering Corridors was made the same year as Ring. It proved that South Korea was also going to be a major contender in what was going to be an Asian horror-boom.

It also set some of the trends in the genre before everyone, South Korea included, started recycling the elements of Ring over and over again.

Whispering Corridors gets it's gloves off before the opening titles come up, with a Ring-strength scene. A teacher, trying to convince someone on the phone about a discovery, is attacked by a ghost and killed.

Next morning, three teenage schoolgirls are the first to discover the body, but it looks like a suicide. The head teacher, Mr Oh, is keen for rumours and gossip not to escalate. The girls are already talking about a vengeful ghost being responsible.

South Korean High School girls in trouble!

The film is very critical about various problems in the school system, portraying some teachers as slobs or bullies, and admitting that some of the students can be less than keen about schoolwork, foul-mouthed and interested in sex. This honest depiction of teenage life was very popular with audiences in South Korea, but would not be at all likely in a mainstream Japanese film for instance.

The horror is far more adult than, for instance, the Japanese Haunted School films, because characters die, and they die messily and tragically. Indeed, one death scene looked so choppily edited that I thought it was censored. I'd like to compare the Hong Kong DVD that I watched, to either the US or UK releases.


The films are also quite hard to classify, switching between horror and drama. After the scary introductory scene, the story settles down for a while into an involving melodrama, as two unlikely students become friends because of a common enemy - the violent teachers - particularly the head, nick-named 'Mad Dog'!

The acting is certainly much better than your average horror film, and the film has been carefully crafted, colourfully shot, elegantly scored, to rank it as a good 'international film' to represent the country's film-making at its best.

With an almost all female cast, and the few men in the film violent or at least short-tempered, this would be labelled as feminist in the eighties. But it's not clumsy, preachy, or contrived. It's insular though, like all good horror movies. We don't see anyone go home. We never leaving the school setting, so there's a feeling of being trapped in the building.

Director Ki-hyeong Park, went on to make another horror film, Acacia, but none of the sequels. Here's an interview with the director about the influential film.

The three subsequent sequels are only linked by the theme - hauntings at girls' schools -not by directors, stars or characters. Therefore, each film can be viewed on its own, and in any order.

Almost the only link that I noticed, was one scene in Whispering Corridors where two girls walk up some leafy steps to the old school building, which looked remarkably like the iconic setting of The Wishing Stairs, the third film.

Soon I'll cover the rest of the films in the series. Voice, the fourth, was reviewed here, though the fifth film that was rumoured to be in production hasn't yet materialised.


So far in the Whispering Corridors series...

WHISPERING CORRIDORS (1998)

MEMENTO MORI (1999)

THE WISHING STAIRS (2003)

VOICE (2005)

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MEMORIES OF MURDER (2003) from the director of THE HOST

MEMORIES OF MURDER
(South Korea, 2003, IMDB entry Salinui chueok)
Region 3 NTSC DVD (CJ Entertainment)

I’m bored by police-procedurals. We’re shown a crime, now let’s watch the police solve it. These dramas are usually so cliché-ridden, and full of red herrings. Writers seem to be bored with trying to intelligently perplex the viewer, resorting instead to cinematic cheats (not showing you all the clues), or outrageously plotted cheats that you could never guess. Or they’re too simple and I guess it right away. I’ve lost patience over the years. So now, I avoid movies and TV in this genre. There’s an awful lot of it to avoid.

I didn’t know quite what sort of film Memories of Murder was going to be, I was half expecting a psycho-on-the-loose thriller. I wanted to watch it because I’d already seen the director’s next film, The Host (2006). Having enjoyed that so much, I had my hopes pretty high. I didn’t know I was getting a police-procedural movie. I also didn’t know I was going to enjoy it so much.

Whether it was because of the unusual locations, but this movie felt worlds apart from the usual murder mystery. Besides enjoying the story, I was learning about the quirks of living in South Korea in the mid 1980’s, when the country was under military rule, with the public enduring regularly staged curfews and air raid drills.

The main characters are members of the police force who are trying to catch a serial rapist who also murders his victims. Under-equipped and under-staffed, they try methods both fair and foul, and follow hunches that are both unlikely and even unscientific.

I was wrong-footed by the opening subtitles – many thrillers and horror films open by saying that ‘the following story is based on a true story’. Opening statements in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Picnic At Hanging Rock duped me into thinking the stories actually happened, which makes watching the films almost mind-blowing. When I found out that it was just a dramatic ploy, it’s both relief (for the victims) and a realisation that I’ve been duped. Rather than be duped again, I chose to ignore the opening statements, and assumed it was pure fiction.

But this film actually is based on a true case, back when the country suffered it’s first ever serial killer. Director Joon-Ho Bong studied the case carefully and wanted to tell the story from the police’s angle. And as we’ve seen from The Host, he doesn’t like Hollywood endings…

Despite Memories of Murder only being his second film, this is remarkably assured film-making. Confident character-driven story-telling, immaculately photographed, very visual narrative, very beautiful to watch. The grim subject is leavened with black humour, and by the bizarre behaviour of the increasingly desperate detectives.

The acting is uncanny. I’ve seen some of these actors before, but they convincingly become their characters, drawing me completely into the story. Several actors also star in The Host, notably Kang-Ho Song and Hie-bong Park, here playing cop and boss, rather than father and son. Sang-kyung Kim plays the other lead detective, brought in from the capital to help the country cops.

It’s an enthralling and impressive film. Sometimes grim and tragic, but always gripping. Now that I know it actually was a real case, watching it again is going to be even more harrowing. But obviously I’d like to know more about the actual events. But this isn’t information that’s easy to find in English.

The Hong Kong DVD was anamorphic widescreen with 5.1 audio. But the extras weren't subtitled in English, which is a great pity - I'd love to know what was said in the director's commentary... The film is also available on DVD in the UK and the US.

I'm sure as more audiences discover The Host, they'll hopefully be tempted to go back to this film. Anyway, in the meantime, I’ll go back even further and seek out the director's first film, Barking Dogs Don’t Bite, apparently a black comedy…

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J.S.A. JOINT SECURITY AREA (2000) North and South

J.S.A. JOINT SECURITY AREA
(2000, South Korea, IMDB title: Gongdong gyeongbi guyeok JSA)
Thai Region 3 PAL DVD

Like many fans of South East Asian cinema, I'm more than impressed with director Chan-Wook Park's 'vengeance trilogy'. So while I keenly await his next film Cyborg OK (the trailers are already online), I've just watched the film whose success enabled him to make Sympathy For Mr Vengeance.

A poster for Chan-Wook Park's next film - I'm A Cyborg, But That's OK

Joint Security Area isn't as outrageous stylistically or narratively as Oldboy or Lady Vengeance, being a fairly straightforward murder mystery. But there are some directorial flourishes and a offbeat dark humour that indicate the direction he would soon take. Set in the neutral no-go area between North and South Korea, a shooting incident leaves two soldiers dead and two wounded survivors - one from each country.

A Dutch investigator, fluent in Korean, is brought in by the neutral peace-keeping force to determine exactly what happened. In prolonged flashbacks we learn about the lives of the men in the months leading up to the fateful night - a scenario the authorities hadn't anticipated...

The director manages to play both sides here, delivering a violent, occasionally bloody thriller to demonstrate an anti-violence theme. The film also attempts to counter the demonisation of North Koreans as seen by the South. For an international audience, there's enough exposition to get everyone up to speed with a brief history of the country's division - certainly very relevant at the moment. Other recent Korean films braving the subject, like Ki-Duk Kim's The Coast Guard (2002), expected the audience to know their history.

The main strength of the film is the performances - the leading members of the cast all returned to appear in Park's subsequent films. The investigating officer in J.S.A. is played by Lady Vengeance herself, Yeong-ae Lee. The North Korean officer is Kang-ho Song, Mr Vengeance, also a familiar face in cult Korean films such as The Quiet Family, Memories of Murder, and this year's blockbuster The Host. The other soldiers in 'the incident' are played by Ha-kyun Shin, also from Sympathy for Mr Vengeance, and Byung-hun Lee, the lead in Park' s contribution to Three: Extremes.

The only distraction in the film were the western actors with English-speaking parts, but thankfully they are not in many scenes. The film is otherwise very satisfying on many levels - beautifully shot, cleverly written, with an excellent cast. It maintains quite a grip throughout, because we know where the story leads... but not how it happened. It's quite hard to categorise in terms of genre, and different scenes could be war, mystery, comedy, thriller, or drama. Once again, I'd recommend this over many Hollywood films, but it's only going to be seen by those who can cope with subtitles.

This Thai DVD (pictured at top) is 2.35 anamorphic widescreen, with DTS and 5.1 audio. There's a trailer included and some behind-the-scenes footage. The English subtitles are OK, but occasionally mis-timed. Thankfully, the film has also been released in many other countries on DVD, including the UK and the US.

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CELLO (2005) absolutely everything is scary

CELLO (South Korea, 2005)
Region 3 NTSC DVD

About as scary as jello, Yello or Elvis Costello

From last year's batch of South Korean horror films, this is the worst so far. I'd recommend The Wig and Voice way over Cello.

A cello teacher, recovering from a car crash, is being haunted by something or someone. Is it something to do with a spooky cello she bought for her spooky mute daughter, a spooky tape of cello music, or because they have a new spooky mute housekeeper at home...

The story has so many little red herrings in it, that I wasn't sure what was supposed to be scary. The camera paused on absolutely everything and everyone, with spooky music signalling that all the close ups were siupposed to be scary and significant. It took fifty confusing minutes before we thankfully got a flashback to clue us in to what the hell was going on.

There are a few sudden shocks rather than scares, but even these were misjudged, often obliterated by unconvincing and vague CGI effects. The scares seemed to be aiming at Ju-on: The Grudge for inspiration, but didn't work on me. The death scenes were silly or unimpressive, and the characters' reactions seemed muted and out of step with the events.

I really couldn't get into this - it looked OK, the budget is big enough, but the actors weren't allowed to show us any clues to what they thought was going on either.

As usual, the posters looked good, but I expected more given South Korea's usually high reputation for quality horror films.

Cello is out soon on Region 1 DVD on the Tartan Asia Extreme series.

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THE HOST (2006) film of the year, from Korea

THE HOST (South Korea, aka Gwoemul)

The Host with the most (box-office takings in Korea)

From the very first Host posters, I’ve been wanting to see this. Thankfully on Monday, Frightfest in London closed their annual horror and fantasy film festival with it. I don't want to spoil the plot - this has only been released in Korea so far (where it’s their most successful film ever – outselling the war epic Brotherhood and topping even The King and the Clown). I’m hoping that it's success will spread, and many of you will soon get a chance to see it.

The producer’s have taken great pains not to give away too much of the story and to restrict spoiler pictures of the monster being released (especially when you really need to see it move). It’s much more of a pleasure when the story comes as a surprise.

Yes, The Host is a monster movie, but you can’t pigeonhole Jaws like that either. It’s a lure to draw us in to see a fine Korean thriller/black comedy/drama… with a monster. I’ll go out on a severed limb and compare this film favourably to Jaws – in fact in my mind, it’s second only to Jaws. You really get involved with the characters before the monster kicks in. (Don’t worry you don’t have long to wait.) The monster isn’t gigantic, it doesn’t knock over buildings, it’s just large enough to knock over cars, trucks, people…

In fact, imagine if you will, the horror of a large shark that can travel on land… (and I thought that Junji Ito’s Gyo manga was unfilmable!)

I’ll say no more, even though I’m busting to give this a full review. I’ll just say this was very, very entertaining, and it didn’t pull it’s punches. It avoids many cliches of the average Hollywood blockbuster.

It is instead a very Korean blockbuster. The story also manages to say much about modern-day Korea, and many of it’s society’s strengths and foibles, which is probably why the film is so popular in the cinema there.

The film also serves an international audience and I can’t wait to see it again. Hopefully in a cinema in Britain, before it joins the inevitable DVD shelf. But maybe I’ll hold out for an HD release… and look forward to seeing The Host all over again.

I hoped I was onto a winner when I first saw the cast, they’re becoming very familiar faces to me. Hie-bong Byeon (from the both of the director’s previous films) excels as the father of the central dysfunctional family. Kang-ho Song (star of Sympathy for Mr Vengeance and Memories of Murder) plays a similar role to his turn in The Quiet Family, as his lazy, slightly stupid son.

Du-na Bae (aka Bae Doo Na, from Tube, Ring Virus, Sympathy for Mr Vengeance) as the daughter. The likeable Hae-il Park (as the younger son, also from Memories of Murder) and memorable newcomer Ah-sung Ko (as the grand-daughter) complete the family.

Full marks to director Joon-Ho Bong (Memories of Murder) for also getting strong actors to play the few Westerners’ roles. I really wasn’t ready for Scott Wilson to appear in the opening scene – a bolt from the past from cult movie The Ninth Configuration and Exorcist III (both directed by the writer of The Exorcist, William Peter Blatty).

The Host.
Do you want to know more?

Here’s a heap of trailers on MovieBox or if you don’t want choices, here's the best trailer so far from Japan, on the omniverous Twitch Film site.

Monster movies from Korea have been pretty poor in the past, like the awful Reptilian, (a remake of the awful Yongary). From the trailers, I thought that forthcoming giant dragon/serpent D-War was going to be a similar approach, but a marked improvement. But after a very long post-production, I think D-War has waited too long for it’s release (later this year), and will now only serve as an anti-climax after The Host, adhering as it does to the traditional gigantic monster movie formula (Army tanks vs building-destroying monster). But we’ll just have to wait and see.

Much as I love the gigantic monster genre, epitomised by Japan’s Godzilla movies, The Host heralds the near-future of monster movies. Much like the Gamera trilogy gave the genre a kick up the backside in the nineties.

Please look forward (and behind you) for The Host.

THREE: EXTREMES (2004) a trilogy of terror, blood and art

THREE: EXTREMES
Again, much has been said about this instant classic already, but after seeing so many insipid Asian ‘horror’ films lately, I was greatly rewarded by Three: Extremes. I watched the Hong Kong release (above) which has very good English subtitles.

It’s an anthology of three short horror stories by different directors, Fruit Chan from Hong Kong, Chan-Wook Park from South Korea, and Takashi Miike from Japan.

It's also a follow-up to the less successful Three (aka Three: Memories) made in 2002. Confusingly this previous film is about to be released on DVD as a sequel and called Three Extremes 2.

There’s also a spin-off movie which expanded one of the short tales into feature-length, called Three Extremes: Dumplings. Got all that? Together with different release titles in different countries, it’s not surprising that there's confusion.

It’s also strange that three different Asian countries should be lumped together, but that’s the nature of the West’s perception of Asian horror, I guess.

BOX
The first story in Three: Extremes is called 'Box', Takashi Miike’s most adult film since Audition. Artistically beautiful to look at, and impeccably acted. The story soon turns to a dark sexual side that shows the extremes that this Three is prepared to deal with.

It begins with a young novelist, haunted by dreams of being buried in a small box, discovering that she’s being haunted in real life by her twin sister. They used to be a double act in a small circus, but jealous that her sister was getting more attention from a magician, she tries to even the score, with tragic results. Mostly taking place in the winter, the snow makes her torment very picturesque.

Miike makes this effortlessly creepy almost straightaway. It’s also sensual, in a disturbing way, beautiful and distressing at the same time, creepy and alarming. A compelling short film. Possibly my favourite.

DUMPLINGS
The second, 'Dumplings', directed by Hong Kong’s Fruit Chan, is the most famous and sickest of the three, becoming so popular that the producers soon released an expanded feature-length version. The subject matter is almost unbelievable, but entirely possible.

A rich but fading TV actress tries to fight off middle-age by visiting Aunt Mei, a modern day witch who makes the most expensive dumplings in town. What can she possibly cook that will return youthful looks? The answer is pretty awful, and has to do Mei's previous profession as an abortionist...

The ghastly tale is beautifully rendered by Christopher Doyle’s colourful cinematography. The tale is also rich with subtexts about the differences between Hong Kong and China, superstitions transcending class, and the pressures on women deserted by their husbands for younger women. It’s a multi-layered story and understandably easy to expand (unlike the other two tales).

CUT
The third 'Cut' is the first disappointing film that I’ve seen from Chan-Wook Park, whose 'Vengeance' trilogy I rate as being my favourite films from South Korea (Sympathy for Mr Vengeance, Oldboy and Lady Vengeance). It felt to me like he was trying way too hard, including flashy one-take, impossible tracking shots (inspired by Panic Room, no doubt).

A movie director is held hostage on the set of his latest production. He's tied to the wall, his wife is superglued to a piano (!). If he doesn't comply, his wife is going to start losing fingers...

I found the premise for the hostage-taker's grievance unconvincing, and the final outcome didn't feel logical. It’s a great set-up and there’s some genius flourishes and twists, but in the company of the other two tales, it looked like the weakest.

Having said that, the climax made me feel the queasiest due to the amount of bloodshed!


So, if you like your horror films extreme (like the prolonged agony of Audition's climax), but thought it was slow, here’s a tale that delivers much, much faster. Creepy, gory, well-made, almost full marks!

Bravo!


Do you want to know more?

There’s a longer synopsis, full of screengrabs and spoilers at Dragon's Den UK...

Three: Extremes is out on Region 2 PAL DVD, with Three Extremes 2 due out later in the year.

THE QUIET FAMILY (1998) Korean black comedy on R2 DVD

THE QUIET FAMILY (1998, South Korea, titled Choyonghan Kajok)
Region 2 PAL DVD (Tai Seng)

The original "Katakuris" tale with a heavyweight cast

Not a full review here, but I just had to flag this movie as an 'instant favourite' from my growing list of Korean films, and it's available in the UK too. Great cast, familiar faces, cult director, but the film has been eclipsed by a Japanese remake by another cult director!

For all the critical fuss about The Happiness of the Katakuris, I wasn't impressed with it's low-budget, genre-busting shenanigans. I’m a Takashi Miike fan, but not of absolutely everything he takes on. Katakuris was a remake of this Korean film, The Quiet Family, which I enjoyed far more.

The set-up is roughly the same - a bankrupt family take on a backwoods guest house in the mountains (in this version it's near the border between North and South Korea).

Terrified of getting a bad reputation, the owners hide the fact that their first guests commit suicide on the premises. Desperate to protect their business, they'll bury their secrets and even resort to murder...

The Quiet Family like Katakuris, is a bloody black comedy that occasionally gets bizarre, there's even a little singing... But I found it more effectively shocking, and funnier.

Notably, it stars Min-sik Choi (Oldboy himself) and Kang-ho Song (Mr Vengeance himself) here convincingly playing the 21 yr old son. The two actors have been in most of the best Korean films in recent years, but here they play as part of an ensemble cast - the two daughters and the matriarch of the family are all equally strong characters.

The director Ji-woon Kim went on to make the classic A Bittersweet Life and A Tale of Two Sisters. So a growing audience should hopefully search back and find The Quiet Family.

The only downfall for me was the hurried ending which left too many plotlines unfinished, but it's still hugely enjoyable while it lasts.

Mark H

VOICE (WHISPERING CORRIDORS 4) Thai DVD review

VOICE - WHISPERING CORRIDORS 4
(2005, Korea, aka 'VOICE LETTER')

PAL all-region Thai DVD (released by Rose)

Fourth in the Whispering Corridors series, Voice has the most lavish budget in the series and delivers a stylish, bloody ghost story

The 4 films are linked by similar themes rather than by ongoing characters. Each film is set in a girls’s high school ‘with a history’, with a story that involves suicide, lesbian relationships, and schoolgirls haunted by their dead friends. Whispering Corridors (1998) got the series off to a shaky start. Memento Mori (1999) however, is a very good drama, with convincing naturalistic performances depicting modern school life. Halfway through, the film then concentrates on the ghost story and becomes less individual. It’s a good film, but not an essential horror. The Wishing Stairs (2003) then fell back on Ring for horror ideas and failed as a drama due to a lower standard of acting. Other films, like Bunshinsaba, were using similar story ideas to greater effect, if horror is what you’re hoping for.

But now, Voice is a giant leap forwards for the series, with fresh new ideas on scares, ghosts and twists. There’s also enough money for some unique visual FX flourishes, like when the ghost tries to piece together her memories. The cinematography is stylish and beautifully realised, adding rich colour to some scenes, defying the muted colours of the school. The cast is fantastic and very watchable. The depiction of school life isn’t as realistic as Memento Mori, but Voice succeeds admirably as a ghost story, with the added slant of having the ghost taking centre stage.

There are some startling death scenes and some extensive FX to depict the various complications of being dead, for instance, the ghost girl being confined to the school. These are ambitious and imaginatively done, but look more scientific than spiritual, as if the afterlife were a natural phenomenon.

It all helps the story take some startling turns and makes for a very different and eventful modern ghost story. The film falters a little towards the end, as the climax is a little drawn out. But if you're after horror, this is the main film in the series to recommend.

The Thai DVD release (pictured at top) is very reasonably priced, but at the expense of the film's extensive sound design. Music and voices are central to the plot, but unfortunately the original Korean mix is only available in stereo. It would certainly be worth getting a version with the 5.1 Korean mix if you have the right audio equipment. Only the Thai dub is in 5.1 on this release. If that’s not a problem, and you’re not expecting any extras, this is a well produced DVD, with great picture quality and well-translated and presented English subtitles. Strangely though, a couple of scenes of a schoolgirl smoking has been digitally blurred out. It’s not crucial to the film, but it is annoying.

November 2007 update: a Korean DVD with English subtitles and 5.1 audio has since been released, available here. Presumably it will have none of the Thai censorship either.

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HAAN (2005) Pearl Harbor double-agent

HAAN (2005, South Korea, a.k.a. HAN GIL SU)
Korean region 3 NTSC DVD

Disappointing WW2 espionage drama

The premise seemed very promising for this recent movie from Korea. A Korean double-agent playing the Japanese off against the Americans on the islands of Hawaii, just before the attack on Pearl Harbor. Based on a real-life person, not much is actually known about what actually happened, giving the film-makers plenty of licence - unfortunately they don't provide much excitement or suspense in what should have been a nail-biting race against time.

The script clumsily describes contemporary attitudes and current offscreen events through chunks of exposition. The characters' relationships are simple and melodramatic, but without much drama. It's also confusing in places - there's one scene that ends with Haan being tortured and his little finger is about to be guillotined off - the blade descends, the film quickly fades out to black - next shot he's in a hospital bed and you can't see his hands. What just happened? Did he lose a finger or not? A 'non secitur' if you like. Very confusing.

Worse still are the anachronisms in the film. The US Naval HQ building looks like it was built in the 1970's rather than the 1940's, and in one scene they ride around in modern speedboats, jarring the viewer back into modern times.

The film clearly labels which characters are Korean and which are Japanese, using stereotypical signifiers like kimonos, sake drinking and lots of Japanese flags hanging around the rooms. Realistically though, the characters speak in the correct languages.

The climax includes the cheapest recreation of the attack on Pearl Harbor that I've ever seen. A total of 5 American extras are onscreen at any time, and the explosions are all added digitally. A few reasonable shots of CGI Japanese planes have been made, but it's hardly worth trying to visualise this event on such a shoestring.

I'd still like to see a documentary about what was known about Haan and how much American intelligence knew about the impending attack. But this movie fails to convince with its version of events.

The Korean DVD (pictured above) has good, clear english subtitles on the main feature. Annoyingly they continue to appear when english is being spoken. The only extras are a trailer (made on video) and a brief look at one simple indoor scene being shot. You can also listen to 10 tracks from the soundtrack, from the CD option on the main menu.

Max

TUBE (2003) Korean action thriller

TUBE (2003, South Korea)
Region 2 PAL DVD (from Asian Vision)

As a change from creepy horror, I watched a Korean blockbuster instead. Tube aims to emulate Western action films like Speed, whilst not having nearly the same budget. It has a certain pedigree, coming from the makers of cult thriller Shiri.

Having given up the police for a job in subway security, our hero has a chance to settle an old score when a terrorist hijacks an underground train with the mayor and a 1,000 passengers on board.

After 5 minutes into the film, you'll have a good idea of what sort of film to expect. The protaganists in the initial gun battle seem impervious to a whole army of police with machine guns. Top it off with a couple of gratuitous exploding car stunts and you'll understand that the accent is on action, and light on logic. The ensuing subway train action relies more on blue-screen fakery and CGI rather than actual stunts, so please don't expect expensive Die Hard 2 set pieces.

Having said that, the film's strength is its cast - the characters are likeable and well-acted. This being a mainstream action film, there is comedy relief on hand from Seok-hun Kim's overly angry boss. Du-na Bae, as Kim's fiesty love interest, is particularly memorable - she previously starred in the awesome Sympathy for Mr Vengeance. Though I'm not sure why she carries a guitar around for the entire film!

This isn't a bloody police vs gangster shoot-em-up - there's no gore - it's more the sort of violence you expect from a disaster movie rather than a martial arts film. That said, it still doesn't pull it's punches with the fight scenes, the impact being more dramatic than visceral.

Basically I'm trying to warn off viewers who watch Asian action films for high-class stunts and blood action, and recommend this to those interested in Korean mainstream cinema - this one not to be taken too seriously. The characters are very real, the acting excellent and the plot keeps moving briskly along with twists around every corner.

The Scandinavian Asian Vision region 2 DVD (pictured) has an excellent DTS soundtrack, clear picture and excellent english subtitles. No extras except trailers.

THE UNINVITED (2003) Korean horror - DVD review

THE UNINVITED (2003, South Korea)
DVD review (R2, Asian Vision)

Still reeling from seeing this one.

From the opening creepy premise, the downbeat atmosphere keeps on going further down... An architect travelling on a subway at night realises that 2 little girls sitting near him, have in fact been murdered. As they begin to haunt him, his relationship and his family start to unravel. Particularly when he seeks help from a young woman who has recently lost her own child.

THE UNINVITED is a slow-moving, but gripping drama with supernatural overtones. I kept on misreading where the plot was going - it's not so much about the murder case with which the film opens, but about the case he subsequently gets tangled up in. I was confusing some of the plotted coincidences with the parallel themes that the director was exploring - I'll probably follow the film better on a second viewing.

All the characters were beautifully played, particularly the architect (Shin-yang Park) and the young narcoleptic (Ji-hyun Jun, star of MY SASSY GIRL) who have the most challenging scenes, for instance where Park has to be overwhelmed by grief.

Re-occurring themes of unwanted children and infants in danger seem to address the fears of young parents. However, there were many subtle images throughout the film which I recognised but didn't gain anything from - there was an ongoing battle between christian and buddhist icons, for instance. I felt I was missing the point, while wanting more clues as to what exactly was going on. A case of not seeing the wood for the trees, or if you like, couldn't see the plot for the subtexts.

But I mean to recommend this film. It's haunting and memorable. The dream sequences are beautifully done, and the acting is sublime. But it's the distressing shock moments that take the film into a horror movie category occupied by the similarly tragic TALE OF TWO SISTERS, also from South Korea.

The Asian Vision Region 2 DVD (not pictured here) that I saw was intended for Scandinavia, but it had a good set of english subtitles and a fine DTS soundtrack. There are trailers for THE UNINVITED, TELL ME SOMETHING and TUBE.

Probably not for cat lovers...

Max

INTO THE MIRROR (2003) movie review

INTO THE MIRROR
(South Korea, 2003)

Starring Ji-tae Yu
Written and Directed by Seong-ho Kim

From the brooding poster (pictured), I got the impression I was going to see a psychological thriller about a killer with a split-personality. Instead I was pleasantly surprised to get a movie with a split-personality - half detective thriller, half horror movie.

Into The Mirror begins in a huge department store at night. The last employee to leave does some last minute shoplifting before dying in a bathroom, her throat cut. Next day, the head of security doesn't think it's suicide and is about to start an investigation when a second mysterious death occurs...

Ji-tae Yu stars as the store's security chief, who's resigned from the police after a hostage situation went horribly wrong (that may sound corny, but they've added plenty of twists). This young and attractive actor is one of Korea's biggest stars, judging by some of his recent credits - he was suitably sinister in the superb Oldboy, he starred in the futuristic police actioner Natural City, voiced a character in the sci-fi animation Wonderful Days (aka Sky Blue), and had major parts in Siren (aka Libera Me) and the enjoyable teen slasher Nightmare (aka The Horror Movie Game). No wonder he looks familiar.

Once the supernatural elements have emerged, the film reverts to a detective story, keeping the film firmly in the realm of the realistic. The cast are likeable and play it suitably seriously. The actor playing the lead detective (who refuses to believe that ghosts are involved) was so convincing that I almost believed it was all going to be explained away rationally.


One or two of the mirror effects are a little cheesey, but for the most part they are quite startling. The direction is imaginative and whenever the story starts getting a little too familiar, there's always another twist on the way.


I couldn't recommend Into The Mirror as full-on horror, and would be reluctant to sell it as a police thriller because of its supernatural content. But I can recommend it as unique and entertaining.

UPDATE, January 2008: Alexandre Aja set to release a remake of this as Mirrors, starring Kiefer Sutherland!

ARAHAN (2004) Korean DVD review

ARAHAN (Urban Martian Arts Action) - Korea 2004
Korean all-region DVD, single disc release

Intrigued to see some wirework action in a modern Asian setting, I tried out this film and was generously rewarded. Whereas earlier entries such as VOLCANO HIGH only succeeded in the action scenes, ARAHAN delivers a more rounded film where the characters and the story are almost interrupted by the fights.
A novice policeman stumbles upon a group of Tau-Chi masters who are facing an old and powerful threat.. Actor Seung-beom Ryu plays a geeky traffic cop so well, I couldn't believe that he was going to be the central character. His acting is superb, amongst an excellent cast of strong characters. The directing is also inspired, with some tour-de-force single-take sequences, show-stopping fights and masterly comic touches. The film delivers as much comedy as gritty action. Any CGI effects are sufficiently restrained so that humans are involved for the larger part, meaning that I remained connected with the film - which didn't happen with the similar city-spanning sequences in SPIDERMAN.
Impressive, likeable and very entertaining, it's another Korean keeper!
This Korean DVD release is 16:9 anamorphic widescreen - it has well-translated optional english subtitles, DTS and Dolby Digital 5.1 Korean audio. If you want any extras, seek out the 2 DVD set.

SIREN (Korea, 2001) Region 3 DVD review

SIREN - Region 3 DVD (Miro Vision release)

I was expecting this Korean film to surpass the action in BACKDRAFT. But despite the ferocity of the fire stunts, it's not as spectacular. Also, whenever there's any special effects, the print changes colour completely, giving it away. Similarly, at various points in the film, it changes slightly in colour and clarity, due to faults in the mastering process, presumably. Quite distracting. The subtitles are average too, they seem to be only approximate translations sometimes. You can follow the story easily enough though.

Full marks to the cast, but the script could have used a few less cliches.

Max

YONGARY MONSTER FROM THE DEEP - US DVD

KAIJU OF THE WEEK:
YONGARY - MONSTER FROM THE DEEP


(1967, South Korea)

Region 1 US DVD (Alpha Video release)


Considering myself to be a Giant Monster Movie completist, I felt compelled to get this, despite the awful stills I'd seen. It’s South Korea's answer to GODZILLA (every country should have one). The modelwork isn't THAT bad, about the same level as early GAMERA films, but the script goes way beyond stinky.

The giant monster emerges from the deep (earth), heads for Korea (in search of oil), fights off a small army of toy tanks and still finds time to dance (I’m not making this up). But an annoying kid and his scientist dad discover how to make the monster scratch... a lot...

The writer also ensured that the worst monster movie cliches were included (a prophet of doom, a baby left behind, a kid has all the bright ideas etc). The motivations of many characters are so consistently unfathomable as to make the movie enjoyably bad.

It's certainly not boring and is, perhaps, the best example of a bad kaiju movie - it's got the bad monster suit, the non-existent science, and totally ignores logic. I'll definitely be watching it again, as a double-bill with the also awful 1999 remake.

Alpha Video keeps many obscure titles in circulation for a very low price. This means no money for remastering – YONGARY is presented in a very tightly panned and scanned full screen version – sometimes the action happens out of frame!

The only extras are some stills and posters from the original release. Cheap and cheerful!



UPDATED September 2007:
YONGARY - MONSTER FROM THE DEEP was finally been given a 2.35 widescreen DVD release, on a double bill with KONGA!

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