This is the next movie in my subtitled movie independent list so chips in at 11th and was a strange movie for me to stumble onto a few years ago and I may well share this story with you a bit later. This movie was released in 2006 and was made on a budget of $11m and went on to make $89.4m which is a tidy success in my books. This starred Song Kang-ho, Byun Hee-bong, Park Hae-il, Bae Doona & Go Ah-sung. And no, I have no idea how to pronounce half of those let alone who they are. With the exception of one name which I will come back to later but I will dive into the plot before I give you my verdict and the tri-critic thing later as well.
To the plot! It begins in 2000 with an American military pathologist ordering his Korean assistance to pour out of date formaldehyde down a drain leading to Han River. You can see where this is going straight away. Six years later and Park Gang-Ho (played by Song Kang-ho) who runs a small snack bar in a park next to the river. Working in the bar is his father who helps and his daughter has her own little cubby hole she hides in when she comes out from school. Park is a slow-witted but lovable and loves his daughter even if he cannot stay awake for long. We are not introduced straight away but Park has other family members you meet later in the movie. Namely his sister who is competing in the national archery championship when we are introduced to her. He also has a brother who you meet after the first main incident. Well the first main incident is what tells the entire story is based about. After the six years something in the river has grown and it has decided that now is the time to show itself, by climbing out of the river and running up and down the banks of the river eating and collecting people as it runs along. With just his father and daughter there at the time his daughter is one of the victims and in a scene that introduces the monster to the film. The rest of the family come together to grieve for the loss of the young girl and share the grief with the rest of the city. The girl is alive and being held host(age) by the creature ahead of being eaten by it. Park believes she is still alive but the river is quarantined so he cannot go back there without breaking through official cordons. The plot is set for you and now I need to remember everything I was going to say.
I will start with the Tri-Critic Sync Challenge as I am in the middle here with IMDb giving it a 7.1/10 and more love gushing from Rotten Tomatoes with a 93% score from them. Now I think my score is fair and I will also add that this is not my favourite Korean movie and its not even my favourite movie staring Song Kang-ho as he has done better before this movie and this movie has it very good points and hopefully I will be able to justice to those as I will explain why this movie is not a 90%+ movie for me and there are a few reasons for that. I will begin with my first ever statement about movie and say how you stumble onto them can be a reason why a movie is good or great to you or not if you catch a classic when your goldfish just died you may not remember that movie with any form of affection. Well for me I first saw this movie on late at night on probably FilmFour and was just about to head to bed when this creature jumps out of the river and starts chasing people up and down the bank. This shot and that scene had me hooked but not hooked enough to stay awake so I called it a day when I had no idea how much I had missed and was too tired to try and work out what was going on. I gave up and then many years later watching scary movies with a good friend one evening I mentioned this movie and he suggested finding it and buying it on DVD and low and behold I am writing a review of this movie. I brought the movie back to him to watch it together in each entirety and he was very disappointed which may have had an influence on my decision. The remainder of the movie was humorous in parts but I did have a problem with this. (Why? I am getting to it, be patience) and the monster is very CGI and once its out of the water and in daylight it is not a very disguised CGI. The parts I saw through very tired eyes was very impressive. Though vaped mist eyes (not me smoking) the effects were not as good. The story was not a great one and I was left asking why did the creature eat everyone but take the daughter back to its lair to eat later. The humour I mentioned earlier that had me confused was that the movie thought that it would be funny to have a laugh at a memorial event. With the family falling over each over in front of a photo of the missing girl in a memorial hall of victims of the creature which I just found not to my taste. Beyond that the movie is clever and funny and is everything you would expect. I still enjoyed it despite others not liking it that much but to me it is not a 90% movie when Song appeared in a Vampire movie that was grittier and cleverer as well called the Thirst which was much better but not got the western press that this movie got. Watch this one followed by going to watch the Thirst.
Comments