Film & Series

Wang Hui Chun and Chao Ching‘s daughters have both been kidnapped and being held captive to work in a large scam organisation while being repeatedly 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.

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.