Film & Series

I was curious about this adaptation because I think 変な家 must be quite hard to bring to the screen. A lot of the mystery comes from looking at floor plans, discovering what is strange and let your imagination run wild, imagining what horrible truths the floor plan could hide.
I think that the adaptation was very good, but at the same time, it also couldn’t really convey what made the book so fascinating. I’d say that the houses were the real center point of the horror in the book, but it shifts to the characters instead in the book. Not that it’s a bad thing, I found it was really well done, some characters in the second half were really creepy.

As for our trio of main characters, I found them a bit too… lethargic? I felt the trio kind of lacked dynamism, which I found a bit irritating. And I personally did not like the film’s portraying of Kurihara, it was just too exaggerated, the character too eccentric.

Overall, I enjoyed watching it, but I also think it’s just less good than the book, because it keeps very close to it, but cannot use the floor plans as well as the book did, so it lost a lot of its impact. Maybe they should have gone with a complete different approach? Action scenes towards the end were quite good, but I think a lot of that horror feeling we get when reading Uketsu comes from the realisation, that moment when we understand what had happened, what the particularities of the house are meant for, it doesn’t come from action scene or our protagonist being in danger.
So on the one hand, the film is not bad, but on the other hand, it also feels unnecessary? Because it lost what made the book so impactful, but also did not really offered a different view.

A man who lost his memory is offered a job by someone he is supposed to know but can’t remember. He accepts the job to take care of the man’s niece in a remote place for a few days. Her dad (the man’s brother) died not long ago and her mother went missing.

The atmosphere of the film was absolutely fantastic, it’s eery and creepy and at the same time the house does have a romantic charm, I found the setting really great.
But… I don’t think having a great atmosphere and settings is enough to make a great film. A film is a mix of several things, and some films will focus more on certain aspects and that’s fine, but sacrificing the cohesion of the story to go all in on atmospheric horror feels like a shame.

The story really doesn’t make too much sense, from beginning to end, and the main character’s actions and decisions are always the less effective. It felt like the scenes came first (and some were really visually striking) and to achieve them, characters acted in a certain manner, even if doing so was stupid from their point of view.

But what bothered me the most is that the film lacked cohesion.

It would have worked fine as a psychological thriller/horror, but it brings supernatural elements that didn’t make much sense and didn’t feel necessary imo. They also felt very random, which is really something that bothered me. The film added some typical horror scenes, that didn’t belong here and didn’t really have a place in the narrative. The painting scene in particular, and more generally the toy rabbit that’s on the poster are good examples of that to me, they felt more like a conventional horror tropes than something really needed.

In the end, neither the supernatural occurrences nor the characters motives and past are really explained. It felt like the film tried out several things, but didn’t commit to any direction so we’re left with multiple loose ends.

Go Beomseok is called to the outskirt of Hopo port village to investigate the corpse of a cow whose body carries the oversized marks of claws. When entering the village, he finds the place partly in ruins and villagers still alive are fighting something that Beomseok can’t see at first. Meanwhile, Go Seongki and a group of hunters follow traces to the forest.

I really loved Hope, I think it must be my favourite film of the year so far!
First of all, the setting was breathtaking, all the scenes that take place in Hopo village were fascinating, like the place in itself was a really good setting, but I really liked how we first see the results of the monster’s arrival in the village without seeing the actual creature for a very long time. I found this so great, the film does not reveal what villagers are fighting against until very late, but once it does, it just never stops, it’s relentlessly chasing our protagonist. I liked how we suddenly go from a rather calm brutality, where we only see buildings in ruins and bodies all over the place, to the chaos and violence of fired bullets and car chases.
The parts that take place in the forest were maybe less impactful than the village ones, but I still loved them very much, especially that memorable horse scene that’s used as one of the film posters.
Characters were also very good, especially Beomseok who is far from being a hero, but never questions the necessity of defending the village.
There were some humorous moments that I found quite funny, but they did not disrupt the tension of the film.
Overall, I really loved that this film does not follow any fixed script dictated by a genre. I could never say what would happen next. I think that it’s quite rare to watch a film that belongs to a genre and is very entertaining but where you feel like anything could happen, and you have no idea where the director is going to take you.
The only thing that I haven’t loved as much are the two human-like creatures, and their discussions that didn’t seem any different from a discussion humans would have. It does feel like the film wants to be the beginning of something bigger and more about them will be revealed in future movies.

Detective Sanja Arunika is sent from Jakarta to Borneo Island, near the Malaysia border to investigate what looks like a double-murder. She learns about a local legend according to which a communist leader’s ghost haunts the region. Soon the body’s identity is confirmed and the Dayak community accuses the police of negligence. Sanja teams up with local detective Thomas.

It’s funny I can’t tell whether I liked this film or not. There’s nothing I didn’t like really, but I found the setting to be the most interesting, whereas the plot kind of failed to get me invested.
There’s really a lot happening in the film, serial killings, Dayak community, the legend of the ghost of a communist leader, child trafficking, corruption, and even a local policeman who needs to hide his Dayak identity… And a two hours film doesn’t seem long enough to cover everything. The film also had to dedicate screen time to our main character’s own past trauma, which is a trope I’m really tired of. All crime films and series need to feature a detective who will eventually face their own demons/traumatic past, etc. In this film in particular, I don’t think it brought much, it just took time away from the case and the characters involved in it. I also don’t think that Sanja being an outsider brought that much to the plot, Thomas or a local officer could have been the lead detective imo.
The investigation was also not very suspenseful… I felt like it jumped from scene to scene without real investigative work in-between.
To me it feels like the film should have been a 4-5 episode series, but instead of watching the series, I just watched a 2-hour long recap. I really wish the film had spent more time on all the topics and characters involved, so I would have felt more invested in the case.

Wang Hui Chun and Chao Ching‘s daughters have both been kidnapped and being held captive to work in a large scam organisation. Victims were tortured and assaulted. The man at the head of the organisation, Chang Shih-kai has been arrested and sentenced to the death penalty, but the family of victims did not receive civil damages because Chang Shih-kai had no assets of his own, when his family is obviously very rich. But there’s no proof that he ever transferred money to his family and his execution makes looking for proof impossible. That’s when Wang Hui Chun and Chao Ching think of a resurrection ritual they’ve witnessed a year ago…

Overall I really liked this series!
All the actors were excellent, and the characters personalities were complex enough to make them feel like real persons rather than drama tropes.
I also really loved how the series handled flashbacks and how it constantly tricked the spectator by hiding information that were revealed later on, giving a completely new interpretation to what happened.
There are one or two things I didn’t like as much, like the two chases scenes felt a bit off in style compared to the rest of the series, and some characters’ positions shifted a bit abruptly in the second half, but these are minor details.

Seonghui settles in her new apartment with her daughter Ji-u. She needs to find a baby-sitter for her daughter and chooses a Vietnamese young woman but soon starts having second thoughts. She installs home camera in each room to be able to keep an eye on her daughter and the baby-sitter while at work.
Working in an assurance company, Seonghui is given the case of a strange death that she might be able to turn into suicide. She brings the case back at home, but soon after Ji-u starts acting strange.

I found 홈캠 okay overall, but it tried to be two films at the same time, and I personally find that it could have been such a great film if it had stuck to one story line only. First of all, I find the two lines to really belong to two separate films. Together they make the plot unnecessarily complicated, and I do think that one was enough. And one of these story line was your classic possession/demon stuff with your mandatory 굿 scene, which was not bad to be fair, but we’ve seen this so many times already, not bad per se, but also nothing special or particularly inventive or new. The other story line though was really excellent: the fact that the mother thought her daughter was still a child, while the home cam started revealing the truth was a great idea. It was very well done, a lot of clues were planted all along, and all the strange little things made sense in the end. I personally think that if the film had only revolved around it, it would have been much much better. The tension that arise from the presence of other characters was enough to make the film a good psychological horror movie. Everything could have been resolved with no supernatural at all.

6 candidats who made it to the final round of recruitment in the IT company スピラリンクス are tasked with preparing a group discussion for their final interview. Thinking they all have a chance to be recruited they become friends and make the promise to all enter the company. When the news come that only one of them will be recruited, their newly formed bound shatters as they must select the winner themselves and enveloppes containing each candidat’s darkest secret are revealed.

I read the book when it came out, and I actually didn’t have a lot of recollection of it. I remember liking it overall, but thinking it wasn’t worth the hype. The idea is good and the plot was entertaining, but there are too many things that are here because the plot needs these elements as devices and foundation, but it just doesn’t make much sense to act like that in the first place. I like when characters and their motivations come first, I want their actions to make sense from their perspective, but in many books, and this one was no exception, they are sacrificed for good tricks and a twisty plot. As a result, some decisions from the protagonists didn’t make much sense imo, and I also found their reactions to be frustratingly unrealistic.

I did enjoy the film much more than the book though, probably because acting was good!
One thing that I disliked though is how over sentimental they made the end, with a stupid piano music in background, like you don’t trust your actors to perform well enough to make the public feel emotional too. I can’t stand this kind of scenes, and it really dragged the film down to me.

Clark is struggling to attract clients in his furniture store while trying to change with the help of therapist Mary Kline. He sleeps at his store because his wife kicked him out of their house, and discovers a “door” in a basement wall that connects to a huge space with yellow walls and furnitures stacked in the middle.

I loved this film much more than I expected to! I’m not surprised that the film leaves us with more questions than answers, but I find it a little bit too opened in the end, though it’s been fun to try and give it my own interpretation.
I found some scene surprisingly terrifying too.

Hyeong-uk shows his friends an app that grants wishes. He is certain that it works because his wish has been granted, though it started a clock which he first interprets as a cool down. None of his friends believe him, but they did install the app on their phone at Hyeong-uk’s insistence.
The group of friends go on with their lives: Nari comes from a rich family and lives in a high storey apartment building, she is in love with Geon-u. Se-a has a traumatic past and lives quasi alone in an old apartment building, she is pursuing her dream to make it to the National Team of athletism. Geon-u lives just upstairs. Hajun lives in a semi-basement room, he is a mathematics and computer prodigy who does not accept the idea of supernatural forces. And Hyeong-uk lives in a villa, he is a complete otaku.
But there is price to pay in exchange for having one’s wish granted. When the group realises that the app is a curse, it’s already too late.

I have mixed feelings about this series, on the one hand, I think it was excellent as a young adult horror series, on the other hand, it was a “not for me” kind of series, so there’s a lot of things that I disliked.
If you like both k-dramas in general, high school stuff and horror, then you’ll probably love this drama.
But personally, I really dislike k-dramas in general. It doesn’t mean that I don’t like Korean series (I absolutely love series like Hellbound or Kingdom, and Karma is one of my favourite series of all times), but you know the set of rules that make k-dramas kind of a genre in itself, especially the feel-good and romance ones. I found that this series had a lot of those typical k-drama stuff that I absolutely cannot bear like characters freezing and looking dumb for several seconds when situations call for a prompt response, useless dialogues when the situation is urgent, and very clichéed and unrealistic characters. I really dislike this kind of perfect characters: Hajun clearly has financial difficulties, but he is a mathematic genius who does well at school. Se-a has a very traumatic past, lives quasi alone, but still found the courage to fight for her dreams, etc. On the contrary, the rich and privileged Nari is the most ambiguous one.
As a result, Nari was by far the most interesting character for me, she’s the only one who felt real, who seemed to have emotions like a normal human being, in opposition to her k-drama stereotyped friends. The two girls at the origin of the curse were also very interesting and I really liked the episode focused on them. I also found Se-a quite dull which is a shame because she is the main character of the series. Overall, the “bad” characters like Nari and Siwon were the most interesting ones, compared to our “good” perfect cast of heroes who have no flaws at all.
I also found some episodes better than others, not really liking the more action-focused ones.
Overall, it was entertaining enough, but even though the story was good, I was so annoyed by the characters that it prevented me from really liking the series. Probably won’t watch if there’s a second season coming.

Sejeong goes to a conference at the 둥우리 building with her ex-husband and listens to the presentation of 강우철, the CEO of 체인스 바이오. At the same time a man calls the police and announces that he is going to start a mass infection in the building while carrying the vaccin in his body. The zombie outbreak starts not long after, and Sejeong is trapped with other people in the restaurant area of the building.

I found this movie extremely good, it was very entertaining, fast paced, and with great actors. The plot is pretty much what you would expect in a zombie film, but it was very well executed. I personally really like the unified thinking aspect of the infection, it brought something new and made the situations more interesting.
There are some memorable scenes, and the film stays suspenseful until the end. I often find that horror films tend to lose their impact when we near the climax and the resolution, but not 군체.
I personally much much preferred this one over Train to Busan (same director). I saw it when it came out, so it’s been a while, but I remember not really liking it, despite overall liking the zombie genre. Too much sentimentalism, too many emotional scenes, and I personally don’t really like children in horror films because you know nothing bad is going to happen to them anyway, so it’s not very suspenseful imo.
There’s no teary emotional scenes in 군체, so to me this is a huge plus, characters were not here for you to like them, but they followed their goal, so all their actions made sense from their perspective.
Seeing the movie in theatres probably made it more impactful, but it’s one of my favourite films of the year so far.