VOICE: WHISPERING CORRIDORS 4 (2005) - a bloody, ghostly mystery

VOICE (WHISPERING CORRIDORS 4)
(2005, South Korea, Yeogo gwae-dam 4: Moksori)

Fourth in the Whispering Corridors series, Voice has the most lavish budget so far and delivers a stylish, bloody ghost story. All five films are linked by similar themes rather than ongoing characters. Each is set in a girls’ high school ‘with a history’, the stories involving suicides, lesbian relationships, and hauntings. 

Whispering Corridors (1998) got the series off to a shaky start. But Memento Mori (1999) has become a favourite of South Korean cinema, as an excellent drama, with convincing naturalistic performances depicting school life. The arrival of a ghost character almost spoils the film by returning it to a more predictable story. It’s a good film, but not an essential horror. Then Wishing Stairs (2003) fell back on Ring for horror ideas and also failed as drama because of the lower standard of acting. Other Korean films, like Bunshinsaba, use similar story ideas to greater effect, if horror is what you’re hoping for.

Then there's Voice, another high point in the series, with fresh new ideas for scares, ghosts and twists. The close friendship of two schoolgirls is shattered when one of them disappears from the music room. The ongoing mystery is why and how...

There’s a bigger budget here for some unique visual FX flourishes. The cinematography is stylish and beautiful, adding saturated colours to some scenes, that defy the glassy cold look of the school. The cast are all excellent and the characters almost all women. The depiction of school life isn’t as realistic as Memento Mori, but Voice succeeds admirably as a ghost story, a mystery, and almost a slasher... with the added slant of having the ghost take centre stage.

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

It all makes for a very different and eventful ghost story, the modern design of the school building reinforcing that this has nothing to do with gothic. If you're after horror, this is the best in the series so far.

The back cover of the US DVD release promises a 5.1 mix, but there's only stereo on the disc, at the expense of the subtle but intricate sound design. Otherwise, this is a well-produced DVD, presented 1.85 anamorphic with great picture quality and well-translated English subtitles, though they're overlarge. I'd hoped for 5.1 audio, but also upgraded to the US DVD because my Thai disc had been censored, not for violence, but scenes of schoolgirls smoking!

The downside to the US DVD is the cover art (above) which is pretty stupid. If you're expecting the extreme horror depicted, it's not in the film and nothing to do with the story. 

There's also a four-movie boxset of the Whispering Corridors series released by Tartan in the UK, under the title Ghost School Horror, and the fourth film is unfortunately retitled The Voice.

The soundtrack of Voice is available on this Korean CD.

Here's an interview with one of the lead actresses and the director of Voice over on KoreanFilm.Org 



Here are my reviews of the first three in the series:

Whispering Corridors (1998)

Memento Mori (1999)

Wishing Stairs (2003)

Soon I'll review the fifth film Blood Pledge.



(This is an update of my review of Voice from April 2006.)

THE RING VIRUS (1999) - Asian remake of an Asian horror film

THE RING VIRUS
(1999, South Korea)

Celebrating (very nearly) four years of Black Hole Reviews with a blogaversary look at another film from the Ring phenomenon.

There are very few successful American remakes of South-East Asian horror films, so how do you feel about an Asian remake of an asian horror? The year after the Japanese smash hit Ring, it was remade with a Korean cast but co-produced by Japan. I'm not entirely sure why - I think they wanted to cash into the horror cycle with a domestic hit of their own. In any case, it's yet another retelling of the original story, mixing elements from both Koji Suzuki's book and Hideo Nakata's 1998 film. It also anticipates scenes from the American remake, The Ring (2002).



It begins with a young girl home alone. Her TV keeps switching itself on. She's also unnerved by a phone call from one friend and a text from another. They both seem to be in trouble. Then she hears something coming upstairs...

Reporter Sun-joo starts investigating her niece's death, becoming suspicious when she learns that three of her friends died on the same evening. The only expert who has any clue as to a possible link is the eccentric Dr Choi, whose theories are seen as far-fetched.

But as Sun-joo visits the lodge where the four friends last met, she finds a videotape and makes the mistake of watching it. It tells her she's going to die in a week unless...


If you've seen Ring or The Ring, you might not want to see another version, but it's interesting to see an Asian remake. While it starts off much the same as Ring, the accent is far more on the sexual possibilities presented in the novel. Indeed, every early scene mentions sex. Though she's never met Dr Choi before, he starts asking personal questions. The teenagers who die in the car were about to 'arrive'. The ghost, here called Park Eun-soo, is portrayed as more alluring than frightening. Her flashbacks are about her sexuality, her history is swapped from being a drama student (in the novel) to working in a seedy nightclub - a marvellous, atmospheric scene that echoes Psycho with a twist... It's the only notably different scene in this version. An early hint of the sexual aspect of the film is in an art gallery at the start, where Sun-joo is interviewing a bisexual artist about her work. It's all much more 'liberated' about sex than the Japanese version.


While the movie starts well, with some solid scares, it turns more into a mystery than a horror, even missing an opportunity with the scary videotape itself. The images are more like memories, indistinct and fading into each other. This is more 'realistic' but harder to see. The lack of clear imagery makes subsequent discoveries less creepy. In Ring, it was always chilling to see something from The Tape appear in real life. Gone too is the progressive emergence of the figure from the well that creeped me out. The flashback to the press conference, another chance for a shock moment, is also curiously changed so that no deaths occur.

So less horror and more mystery. Fair enough. But even the thread of their investigation, which started off so carefully detailed and plotted, then skips several important discoveries until we arrive back at exactly the same ending as the others. Not quite sure of what their logic is or how the curse has spread.

The special effects are just as good, but the carefully set up chain of creepy realisations drain the key climactic scenes of their power. You might not even understand some of the logic towards the end, unless you've seen another version.


This is well-acted, though Dr Choi's introduction is rather too weird. While the cast are largely unfamiliar, famous for TV rather than film, you may recognise Bae Du-na (as Sadako/Park Eun-soo), the olympic archer in The Host (2006), or the girlfriend in Sympathy for Mr Vengeance (2002) and action thriller Tube (2003). It's her face that graces The Ring Virus cover art in Korea (at the top).

Beautifully photographed, with some disorientating angles and fantastic island locations, it's well-directed by Kim Dong-bin. My main problem is with his script (like making the two leads no longer ex-husband and wife), the story structure in the middle, and the fewer scares. But it's an interesting early alternate take on the Sadako mythos, with some unique dramatisations of scenes from the novel. He also made Red Eye (2005), the South Korean ghost story set on a train, not the American thriller (also 2005) set on a plane.


The Ring Virus is available on DVD in the US and UK.

My overview of the many adaptions in the Ring phenomenon is here.


A trailer for on YouTube...

THE CHASER (2008) South Korean thriller verging on horror

THE CHASER
(2008, South Korea, Chugyeogja)

Heard this was a hit serial-killer thriller and decided to have a look. Easy enough, because it's already been released in cinemas in the UK and now on DVD. The Chaser was a big hit in South Korea. While very good, it's not a classic like Oldboy, despite many comparisons and similarities. It's already good enough to soon get remade in Hollywood.

I can't give up too much of the story, as much of the enjoyment is how it unfolds. But our unlikely protagonist is a pimp who's having trouble keeping track of his women. Two have gone missing and he starts to suspect that a third might be in danger of being abducted by a rival. We soon know different, following her to the client, where she realises that she's not in a pimp war, but actually being prepared for slaughter...

There's enough South East Asian movies that pit serial killers against inefficient detectives to fill a whole sub-genre (including Zee-Oui, The Untold Story). This is particularly a key issue in South Korea where serial murders are a new phenomenon (Memories of Murder was about the first ever case). The plot highlights dozens of faults by the investigators and legal team, that cause it all to drag on. It's a far cry fom the high tech methods of CSI. In fact it's so slack that many moments are intentionally funny, in the darkest possible way.

After the film, I learnt that this was an actual recent case. While the story deviates from the truth on many points, it must have helped the box office.

I was thus reminded of Dirty Harry, itself inspired by the Zodiac killer, but also because it takes a renegade working outside the system to cut through the legal red tape, cynical policing and party politics in order to help the innocent.


Though in The Chaser, there's a damaging lull in the centre section of the film as everyone is so completely off track that the audience has to sit and wait until the 'ticking clock' can continue. While the director may have intended this to be suspenseful, I was losing interest because so many of the characters were hopelessly lost in the case.

That said, this could be an effort from first-time director Hong-jin Na to avoid movie cliches. The opening half hour is superb and gripping. The cast are excellent, the film is technically top-notch. But the story ignores many loose-ends and uses far too many coincidences. It's certainly unpredictable and full of surprises, possibly because this is what actually happened. But far too flimsy for a fictional story.


The Chaser is still an undeniably powerful, dark, surprising and watchable thriller. With a couple of moments that are unwatchable. Well, I certainly couldn't bear to look. But, I will look forward to the director's next film, The Murderer.

This is out in the UK on DVD from Metrodome, in a good-looking 2.35 anamorphic presentation.

KIMERA - a South Korean diva turns opera into disco

KIMERA - THE LOST OPERA
(1985, music promo video)

I promise not to do this too often.

I think I have a pretty good taste in music (doesn't everybody?). But I also really enjoy really bad music. Enjoyably bad, that is. So, at the risk of worsening diplomatic relations between the UK and South Korea, here's a pop video that has tickled me since first seeing it around 1985...

Kimera calls her music popera, a musical style combining her astounding operatic voice, a full symphony orchestra and disco... (note that Malcolm McClaren had chart success around the same time, when he artfully combined opera and pop music on the album Fans, mostly a reworking of the main themes from Puccini's Madame Butterfly. I'd also recommend this album, but for very different reasons).

The rage for disco medleys was a brief and painful fad lead by dutch group Stars on 45 in 1981. Sidestepping copyright problems, they recreated many classic pop songs and segued them together to a plodding disco beat. Both catchy and annoying, it's difficult to tell their clips from the original recordings. This tiny musical genre is haunting me at the moment and I can find very little Stars on 45 anywhere to reassess it. For some reason, the London Philharmonic Orchestra also jumped on the bandwagon with Hooked on Classics, mashing classical hits together, to a disco backbeat. The last straw was the music of The Portsmouth Sinfonia, who played similar medleys of classical music but very, very badly.

In 1984, Kimera belatedly used this Stars on 45 approach for a medley of opera hits. Kimera and her Operaiders released her first album, single and this colourful pop promo (in 1985) that seemed to land from outer space. I didn't know what planet it was from but I liked it, for the wrong reasons. Not a fan of opera, I enjoyed the eardrum-piercing genre getting a disco assassination. The music was authentically sung, the music catchy, but all entirely undermined by a drum machine and crass editing which reduced the history of opera to one pop song. The promo video looked expensive but deliriously OTT. Made in France, I think.

On YouTube, the music doesn't stay entirely in synch with the video (why is that?), but you'll get the idea...

For the climax of The Lost Opera promo, Kimera appears in darkness but is made up with luminous paint. A startling effect, undermined by the rest of the video, a car crash of live editing, colour effects, a blue-screen trip around the world, and an oriental garden set, with small birds being thrown past the camera. A stuffed tiger floats past close to the camera, as if being moved on a large turntable. It seems to be smiling. Why is it there? I'd like to know. She seems to be enjoying herself though.

So now I eventually learn that Kimera is the stage name for Hong Hee Kim, a South Korean who discovered her voice could range over four octaves. She moved to Europe, and recorded her first album with the esteemed London Symphony Orchestra. The same London-based orchestra that John Williams conducted for the Star Wars soundtracks. Serious money, but for pop. While Kimera may not have had a hit in the UK, she's successful somewhere, having cut 12 albums.

At the time, I could only find this album on cassette (pictured at top). Now, in a spate of updating my music to digital, I've found MP3 downloads of six of her albums from CD Baby, including The Lost Opera. It's also available on CD from France, like at Amazon.fr. Ah, internet shopping. All those years browsing through record shops, wasted.

Now living in Spain, Kimera's website is here and includes video clips, and press cuttings.

Just thought I'd share that.

GUARD POST / GP506 (2008) - from the director of R-POINT

GUARD POST / GP 506
(2008, South Korea)

Su-Chang Kong wrote and directed both this and R-Point (2004) - both are horror films set in the army. I was impressed and scared by R-Point and wondered if this soldier's tale was going to be similar. The strengths of both films are that you're not sure which particular horror genre you're heading into. A slasher movie? Zombies? Ghosts?

Guard Point begins at the end of a massacre, at a remote concrete complex near the demilitarised zone between North and South Korea. A military investigation team arrives to discover a sole survivor drenched in blood, holding an axe. They're given 24 hours to determine what happened. Did everyone kill each other, or did one man do it all? Is he mad, or possessed?


But as the scares began, I was disappointed to see a few overly familiar horror cliches, especially after the originality of the surprises in R-Point. The plot was certainly clever, but maybe too convoluted, because I started to get lost as the story moved between timelines before and after the massacre.


When explanations finally arrived, they didn't quite answer everything, and I was left sorting out red herrings from loose ends. The narrative was hard-going and requires concentration - with many sudden flashbacks, it's not always easy to follow. Also, with a cast of four dozen characters, all soldiers, variously covered in blood and camouflage make-up, it wasn't easy to make out who's who.


But it's a handsome looking film, with a convincing cast and solid, steadily-increasing shocks. It's certainly far more eventful than R-Point, and far gorier. Maybe I'll understand it better second time around. If it was from Thailand I'd be very impressed. But from Korea, I'd expect to be more satisfied. Boy, am I hard to please sometimes.


Guard Post was released last year on DVD and Blu-Ray in the UK by Cine-East.

Here's the trailer on YouTube, without subtitles though.

HANSEL & GRETEL (2007) - Korea updates Grimm's fairy tale

HANSEL & GRETEL
(2007, South Korea)

A dark, beautiful mystery...

I didn’t even know what genre this movie was going to be in when I started to watch it. I like knowing nothing about the story and was intrigued by which way this tale was going to twist. Of course, I won’t spoil it for you, but must at least describe to you what kind of film to expect. The filmmakers call Hansel and Gretel a dark fantasy, a new movie genre for South Korea.


A young man, Eun Soo (Jeong-myeong Cheon), is driving through a forest when he’s in a car crash. By the time he regains consciousness, night has fallen. A young girl finds him and leads him back to her house deep in the woods. There he meets her family, who look like they’re celebrating the most perfect Christmas ever. Colourful toys, fairy lights and cakes are everywhere. But after staying the night, he has trouble finding the way back to civilisation, or even contacting it… Why can’t he escape the forest?

I was bracing myself in case this mystery turned into an extreme horror, and as I was trying to work out what was going on. The result was simpler than I’d expected, but many minor questions raised along the way were left unanswered.


As usual, with the best of Korean cinema, it’s beautifully designed, with highly accomplished filmmaking and faultless acting, especially from the three children, one of whom is very young.

Before the answers come, it’s a wonderful mystery. The closing act could have been far shorter, a lot of momentum is lost towards the climax, but is eventually satisfying. Without giving too much away, this may be a new genre for Korea, but it appears to have drawn from a certain episode of The Twilight Zone and a little from Village of the Damned… Though thankfully this isn’t another horror about how evil children are - let's kill them!


It borders on being a horror film, but not one that will totally satisfy modern horror fans. Yet there are a few moments that are too tough for children to watch, so 'dark fantasy' will have to do. It's also quite Christmassy!

The film is playing in a couple of small London cinemas at the moment, so hopefully it will get a UK DVD release. If not, there’s a region 3 DVD from Malaysia which even has the extras subbed in English, though many of the features look quite low resolution. They start with director Phil-sung Yim (who previously made the chilly ghost story Antarctic Journal) explaining how he approached the story. The film itself looks good, with well translated subtitles and an anamorphic widescreen picture.

PRINCESS AURORA (2005) - more vengeance from Korea

PRINCESS AURORA
(2005, South Korea, Orora gongju)

If you’re getting withdrawal symptoms from not getting any more Vengeance movies, and I’m A Cyborg didn’t work for you, here’s another tale of revenge from South Korea…

As a scenario, this is superficially similar to Sympathy for Lady Vengeance, as it certainly doesn’t pull any punches revenge-wise. But unlike the Vengeance trilogy, rather than analyse the nature of revenge and the resulting cycle of violence, Princess Aurora has a more one-sided viewpoint as a film, and more single-minded than Dirty Harry as a character.


From the very start, we get the full brunt of the raw violence of the central character, as she mercilessly murders a step-mother for beating her little girl. Then she snuffs out another young woman who has been verbally cruel to a pizza delivery woman. This is extremely rough justice for the respective crimes, but the police are immediately on the case.


Little does one of the detectives know, just how involved in the case he already is. As the killing spree continues, the police are still clueless about her motive or identity, except for a Princess Aurora sticker left at each crime. Though it’s not shown in much detail, it looks like the Disney cartoon character from the animated classic Sleeping Beauty (1959).


This is a compelling thriller from the start, and just as it looks more like a typical cat-and-mouse detective story, the plot starts twisting. It’s not a whodunnit, but her motivation is more of a mystery - not a shallow Friday the 13th explanation, but the core of the film. This is a slickly-made, bloody thriller, with intelligent well-rounded characters. The plot gets a little far-fetched towards the end, but it doesn’t spoil the intensity of story.


Jeong-hwa Eom has the toughest role, showing the turmoil of her character, and having to play-act various other roles to infiltrate her way into her victims’ lives. Sung-keun Moon plays the Detective on the case, while he’s trying to study to be a Pastor!


Gorgeously shot in 2.35 widescreen, Princess Aurora is being released on DVD in the UK by Tartan at the end of June.

YESTERDAY (2002) - future cops

YESTERDAY
(2002, South Korea)

Korea seems very keen on action/sci-fi in the Blade Runner vein. Though this movie isn’t as ambitious or as futuristic as Natural City (2003), the airborne overhead advertising pods and incessant rain are pointers to their main visual inspiration.

Yesterday isn’t set too far in the future (2020), but the police are using robot insects to look around a hostage situation. When the storming of the siege goes sour, a detective called Seok can’t get over the tragic results, and he continues to search for a priest involved in the case.

This is a new re-unified Korea, but where the border used to be, a top secret experiment from the past now leads to a series of high-level assassinations. When the Police Chief is kidnapped, another hunt begins and Seok teams up with the Chief’s daughter to investigate, not realising how close to home the mission will get.


While the plot is twisty enough, and the setting has some futuristic embellishment, the story seems to take second place to a long series of furious high calibre gunfights. Beside the two leads, the secondary characters are reduced to little more than a collection of brightly coloured hair-styles, so we can tell who the good guys are. Seon-a Kim as May (pictured top left in the poster, top right on the DVD), is the only one who stands out from the back-up team, a kickass female special op who gets a lions share of the gunplay.

The Police Chief’s daughter is also a serial killer profiler, who is also handy with a gun. Played by Yun-jin Kim, she demonstrates a convincing command of English in one scene, and was soon afterwards snapped up as a regular character in Lost, where she plays a far meeker role. Kim had previously played a gun-toting action woman in Shiri (1999).

Yesterday is slickly made and fast-moving, though I was hoping for a few more inventive alternatives to armed response in the future of law enforcement. It’s now available in the UK on DVD from Tartan, and is also out in the US.

- - - - - - -

I'M A CYBORG (2006) - a lighter shade of OLDBOY

I'M A CYBORG, BUT THAT'S OK

(2006, South Korea, Saibogujiman kwenchana)

After the huge international stir caused by his legendary 'Vengeance trilogy', Sympathy for Mr Vengeance, Oldboy, Lady Vengeance - director Chan-Wook Park has confounded expectations with this eccentric comedy set in a psychiatric hospital.

Working in a huge electronics factory, Young-goon (Su-jeong Lim) is happily talking to the overhead lights. Electrical things are her friends, because she thinks she is a cyborg. Voices talk back to her through a radio. They tell her to stick power leads into her veins to repower herself. She does. It looks like a suicide attempt, so off to hospital she goes.

She gets introduced to a circle of inmates, each with wildly different delusions, caused by pivotal events in their pasts. Il-sun (played by pop idol Rain) thinks he’s a giant rabbit who can steal anything. As Young-Goon’s mental and physical state deteriorates, can he use his skills to help her?


The narrative of the film gets completely lost for a while as the various other patients are introduced. There’s some black comedy as these characters bounce off each other, as long as you’ve memorised all their neuroses and backstories. But it's hard work when you realise that they have little bearing on the central relationship. The crux is whether Young-goon really is a cyborg or not, and we’re teased by the director that what we see is all in her mind - are there really power-up lights in her toes?

I was mindful that surreal movies about madness often indicate that we're in the mind of one of the patients - a movie premise used as far back as The Cabinet of Dr Caligari (1920).

But the story failed to grab me until an hour in, when some spectacular scenes reminded me of classic Oldboy, rather than the early dawdling comedy, like the prison scenes in Lady Vengeance. Cyborg starts off whimsically amusing, but the long wait for the plot may turn the fans off. Similarly confusing is the ending, a distinct difference from the tight narratives of the Vengeance films.


The production design delivers a colourful and stylish asylum, with vibrant green padded cells, modern art in the gardens and very 'now' wallpaper in the canteen. I thought it was supposed to be either a hugely expensive hospital, or another inmate’s delusional take on the usual drab décor of these institutions.

This is closer to a fantasy world, especially the Willy Wonka factory where she worked. So I shouldn’t have been too troubled about the simplistic, surreal version of mental illness - where the medical research for the script seems to start and end with the completely outdated One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest (1975).


Actress Su-jeong Lim, one of the sisters in the haunting A Tale of Two Sisters, is again quite excellent in a unique and unprecedented role. Rain helps her to carry the film, and he may be hoping to go west with future films, already appearing in the new Speed Racer.

I think the gentle pace and humour of I’m A Cyborg will appeal to a new audience who enjoy 'World Cinema' and haven’t seen the director’s earlier ultra-violent black comedies. But for his fans, this must come as a big disappointment.


I watched the Hong Kong region 3 release. But this will be on DVD and Blu-Ray in the UK (from Tartan) by the end of May, under the simple title I’m A Cyborg. Non-English DVD releases are already out in France and Germany.

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DRAGON WARS (2007) and Korean monster movies

DRAGON WARS
or D-War

(2007, South Korea)

The Host and Dragon Wars are both South Korean films, both monster movies. They are however completely different experiences, with vastly alternate methods of gaining international attention.

Downtown Los Angeles under attack from duelling giant monsters and a demon army. Tanks on the streets, chopper chases through the skyscrapers...

Dragon Wars finally landed after years in production, also known under the less catchy title of D-War. It had a huge marketing push in the US, leading to a nationwide 1500 screen opening in cinemas. Is this the way for other non-English speaking countries to make it big in movies?

D-War starts with a confusing flashback/flashforward within a flashback structure to set up the story, an obviously condensed section of narrative. There's an ancient monster trying to find one woman, who has the power to make the giant lizard (that looks like a snake) even more powerful - enough to destroy the world…

There's an impressive early battle scene (one of the few actually shot in South Korea) but the film fails to entertain again until the centrepiece showdown, which is almost as much fun as the climax of Michael Bay's Transformers. Los Angeles gets a thorough trashing as a monster army faces off against the police and the army, while two dragons fight over the girl, chasing her around and up the skyscrapers.

The only parts of the film sections that made sense to me were the action scenes, due to the mind-bogglingly bad dialogue and story logic. If it wasn't for the monster scale of the action, this would also look dangerously similar to those Anaconda movies. While the city battle is realistic enough, the effects falter again at the climax, in a low resolution Lord of the Rings fantasy dreamscape, with matching low-res dragons.

I'd have gladly sacrificed the CGI effects budget for the baffling 'monster army' subplot (and its repetitive walk-cycle), in order to finance a better script. If the forces of evil have their own dragon, why do they also need an army?

Besides the US locations are a mostly US cast. Jason Behr (Roswell, The Grudge) chooses one expression and sticks with it for the entire film, though he deserves an award for looking relaxed and happy in front of D-War posters at the publicity junkets. Robert Forster (Alligator, Medium Cool) gets lumbered with a loooong initial stretch of exposition about what Imoogi and Buraki are (don't ask), while hoping a Black Hole will once again swallow him up.

The FX action is the only reason to see this, as the monster wades through some impressively destroyed buildings, while chasing our heros. But strangely, all the CGI shots appear to be severely cropped, top and bottom. The 2.35 letterbox makes the composition of these shots look like mistakes, where the dragons' eyes are repeatedly lost out of the top of the frame, and their bellies running along the ground (crucial for integrating a non-existent object into its surroundings) is often missing from bottom of frame.


Though largely shot round Los Angeles, D-War is a South Korean film. Written and directed by Hyung-rae Shim (who graced us with Reptilian, an obvious dry run). The CGI visual effects were all created in a new facility in South Korea.

The film has bent over backwards to get success in the US. It's from a strange cyclical urge for the country to try and make money from giant movie monsters. While D-War is less of a train wreck than earlier Korean quasi-kaiju (see below), it still can't match any average standard of film-making. Nor can it hope to match the quality of the The Host, a far cheaper film, also from South Korea, also hoping for international attention. But D-War is a fascinating demonstration of the furthest extent of compromise in international cinema.

Even with exceptionally poor reviews, Dragon Wars huge marketing push has encouraged so many to see it, that it's far better known and even considered more fun than The Host. This recent unexpected reaction has left me baffled. So expect to see more enjoyably bad big budget movies from other countries, all shot in English.


The west generates enough mindless entertainment like this already. I enjoy Korean cinema for the culture, actors I've not seen before, new ideas, new locations... I don’t need more movies shot in L.A., where practically every TV show and movie is shot. They even went to Bronson Canyon, a cliched location for Hollywood even back in the fifties! I honestly thought D-War would at least strike a balance and keep more of it in Korea.


The Host succeeded in breaking away from monster movie cliches by focusing on the human characters. Before the beast arrives, we're already involved in the dysfunctional family. It defies the genre by working in drama, humour, political satire, and presenting an overview of life in big city Korea. The Host also features some of Korea's top acting talent. If you want a strong story, actual acting, characters, humour, consistent special effects and even a little subtext, The Host is the only South Korean monster movie on the map.

Either way, fans of both The Host and D-War may soon be rewarded with sequels. The battle continues…

Dragon Wars is out on on DVD and Blu-Ray.



Other bad Korean monster movies:

As Japan made an industry out of watchable giant monster movies, South Korea jealously tried to make it's own...


Yongary (1967)
The name of Yongary has long been regarded as the worst of the Asian giant monsters... (Black Hole review here).


Pulgasari (1985)
...until North Korea came up with this. Kim Song Il kidnapped South Korean director, Sang-ok Shin, to make this tale of a man in a monster suit pretending to be the evils of capitalism. Rarely seen till now, it's best that way. Black Hole review here.


Reptilian (2000)
Inspired by America's 1998 makeover of Godzilla, South Korea resurrected Yonggary with CGI. D-Wars’ director Hyung-rae Shim's took an early crack at the American market in 2000, with Reptilian, wisely changing the movie's name. Like D-War, Reptilian also had an all-American cast, CGI monsters, and flaming car wrecks being dropped near fleeing stuntmen.


Serious monster fans may have wisely missed Reptilian, reviews certainly recommended them to. The shoddy CGI monster, well-designed but extremely low on resolution, let's down the live-action work, which offers impressive explosions and modelwork that would have integrated nicely with suitmation and not dated as harshly.

The awful story, acting and other details are barely compensated for by the one original scene in the movie - when soldiers attack using flying jetpacks and a rocket launcher!