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xSamhainx
Paws of Doom
Joined: 11 Sep 2002
Posts: 2192
Location: San Diego |
Phone
While the plaid skirted, ponytailed schoolgirl is a popular kink icon here in America, when it comes to Asian society, they are downright obsessed with them. Ji-won, an investigative reporter, blows the lid off a schoolgirl sex scandal. Needless to say, this makes her public enemy number one with certain members of the community. She starts receiving nasty calls from someone "watching her", as well as gory emails in what appear to be a flash format, depicting her grisly death. Ji-won is no mousy little woman-in-peril though, she berates and even challenges the stalker in one of the film's rare humorous moments. But after a few days it all starts to freak her out, and thinking it's time to lay low, she decides to go into hiding in a spare room at a friend's old house. So, she moves and changes her number, and that's the end of that.
But of course, it aint gonna' be that easy. Just about the time she starts settling in, new disturbing calls start coming in on her new phone number. These calls are different from the last, and seem to be of assorted whispering noises and shrill screams. To make matters worse, her friend informs her that these calls don’t show up on the official log of the phone company as having ever been made. Young-ju, the child of her friend Ho-jeong, answers the cursed phone as the two ladies are yapping the next day. Big mistake.
After they pry the phone from the shrieking toddlers grasp, the kid just isn’t the same anymore. Young-ju starts acting crazy, and strangely jealous of her father, to the point of outright hostility towards her mother. Young-ju totally steals the show in my opinion. For being no more than 4 or so years old, she does a great job portraying a child undergoing a moderate case of possession. Meanwhile, Ji-won starts having dreams of the now archetypical Asian horror "ghostly young girl with long hair", and starts catching something weird out of the corner of her eye. Unfortunately, this about when the movie starts to go back, forward, and sideways, as she starts to unravel the mystery.
There are no proverbial "squiggly lines" effects or chapters preceding a dream, a depiction of events that happened years past, or things happening at the present. These things are just thrown at you, and you need to be thinking on your feet when they are. Further adding to the confusion is the fact that most of the actors look very similar. It's a given for Asian films, but even an experienced veteran such as I found myself wondering "Ji-hoo is this, and Ju-wut du hek is going on" now and then, and had to run things back a bit to get my bearings straight. It seems to pan out eventually and tie up nicely in the end, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t some parts of the story seemingly just tossed out or unresolved, such as the first caller who started the whole phone bulls**t to begin with.
I would have to say that despite the sometimes convoluted approach, this movie was one of the better foreign films I've seen this year. Ji-won is a likeable heroine, and her actions dont seem too incredibly far-fetched or stupid. There are some great dramatic horror scenes, but if you're looking for gore or lots of shocking jolts, you aren't going to really find them here. This leans more supernatural drama than a straight horror shocker, but I'd still consider it a pretty good horror film in the end. And while there are definitely some hot Asian dames in the film, particularly the lead character Ji-won is one hot little fortune cookie herself, there is nary a boob in sight. Now I hate to draw a comparison to "Ringu", but I feel it is warranted in this case. The familiar everyday "evil object" that serves as conduit to malevolent spirits makes a similar appearance, as does the archetypical ghostly girl, but that's about where the similarity ends. This is also a Korean film, and is definitely a far better looking and produced film altogether. While I wouldn't say it's great, it is certainly good, and worthy of at least a rental if you're into this type of film.
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“Then away out in the woods I heard that kind of a sound that a ghost makes when it wants to tell about something that's on its mind and can't make itself understood, and so can't rest easy in its grave, and has to go about that way every night grieving.”-Mark Twain |
Mon Jul 25, 2005 6:55 pm |
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