H

H

I am a huge fan of the Korean serial killer drama Tell me something. So when the review on the box of this movie said `tell me something esque' I thought I would give it a shot. My history with Korean films are hit or miss. This is a miss. I will say this the plot twist is something you would never see in American film. Of course you would also never see it in reality either.

The film is paced so boring. Maybe the moody feeling just doesn't translate but I think the film was going for the SEVEN moody feeling. The camera work was somewhat interesting. The gore was there. The acting was so so. In the end I kinda had to force myself to finish it.

I would say if you have a choice get `tell me something' instead.

On the whole, I enjoyed this film. It starts out with a series of nice, gruesome post-mortem and death scenes, and carries the creepy ambiance most of the way through. Unfortunately, as the twists begin to unravel, so does the quality of the film.

For the sake of those who haven't seen the film, I won't spoil any of the myriad twists, but I will say that you better pay very close attention to this film or you'll miss some illuminating plot points, as I did.

Unfortunately, this has to do with the number of suspects/characters in the film, and the difficulty an American viewer will have keeping all the names separate. Characters are often referred to by name without being on screen (as is the nature of a police thriller), and I found myself, more often than not, seeing said names and thinking, "wait, which one is he?" Still, I doubt I'd have had the problem if the characters in question were more than just your standard serial murder movie cutouts. I watch a lot of Korean cinema, and this is the first time I've ever had this problem.

This speaks to the general quality of the film which, while engaging, is certainly not going to stun most viewers with its artistry. The acting is passable (at best), the writing is sparse and convoluted (though not devoid of entertainment value, to be sure), and the editing is flat-out terrible. That's not something that usually stands out for me in a film, but in this case it was a flagrant issue with the film. You'll find yourselves following the characters to a raid on a suspect's house only to forget why this guy was a suspect in the first place, and random cuts to side characters doing sweet F.A. don't do much to ease the difficulty of following the bouncing (murder)ball.

There are two kinds of "end of the movie twists" out there. There's the "Oh my god, I didn't see that coming, but I should've" twists, and then there are the "uh...what?" twists. Sadly, the final revelation of this film is one of the latter. I've seen debate on the message boards regarding the supposed "final, final twist," but I have to say that it's a pretty loose interpretation to call the final moments of the film yet another twist. It's more of a "book-end," and effective as such.

Where this film fails most is in the expectations it builds. It's an excellent concept for a serial murderer flick, and they spend a lot of time building an interesting emotional landscape that's inevitably forsaken for gimmicky plot devices that, while not wholly unbelievable (though highly improbable), are pretty much just plain silly. Had they stuck with the emotional and psychological themes and forsaken the twists, this would be an excellent film.

As it stands, it is not excellent, but it's certainly not terrible. If you're a fan of Asian thrillers, you could do worse than this one.

-J

Korean thrillers are always fascinating, and this one more so than others I have seen.

A serial killer Shin Hyun (Seung-woo Cho ) confesses to murdering six women, is imprisoned, and the killings go on. They grab suspect after suspect, and the killings go on. Even Shin Hyun's psychiatrist was a suspect.

Naturally, we get mismatched partners, as often happens in police thriller. Detectives Kim Mi Yun (Jung-ah Yum) and Kang Tae Hyun (Jin-hee Ji) are as different as night and day, but they have to make it work.

If you are a fan of se7en or The Silence of the Lambs, then this is the film for you. There are good surprises, and it will baffle you until the very end.

The frame is a thriller with victims and chasers. Yet, the content is richer. The description of females vs. males is especially intriguing. The main female characters Detective Kim Mi Yun and Dr. Chu Kyung-sook are both more intelligent than their male counterparts and they both stay cool while the males are either easily aroused or do not understand. It is true that all the victims are females. Yet, the killings are connected with the reproductive capacity of the females that the males do not possess and can not control. A main motive is the pregnant women's ability to kill their (male) foetuses. The most influential male character, Shin Hyun, murderer now in a prison, has a non sexual foetus like aura. The killings are carried out as revenge on the women for this ability, obviously and totally in vain. Thus, the film describes a core dilemma true for all males. However, I am not aware of a comparable open description in European literature of film. Yet, I have seen it in Japanese films (e.g. Shindo's Onibaba). – A most interesting film.

The brilliance of this film does not lie in its basic thriller plot nor its characters (The characters are not terribly interesting, but the film does not dwell long on their personal lives; The serial-killer plot, while over-used, is paced enough to keep interest.)

Truly, the one reason to watch this film is for the fact that everything--- every action, every line spoken--- leads up to the conclusion. This movie is so perfectly woven that there is not a hair, so to speak, out of place! How few movies are like this one!

Basically, if you want a good story, read a book. If you want a well done film, watch "H".