Telmisseomding

TELL ME SOMETHING is one of the few South Korean films to take a stab at the serial killer genre. The Japanese have been doing it for a while, but the Koreans haven't seemed particularly interested in the genre. TELL ME SOMETHING works in that it's incredibly atmospheric, with visuals that matches even Finch's SEVEN, the new benchmark for serial killer movies post SILENCE OF THE LAMBS.

The one thing that sinks TELL ME SOMETHING is that it is rather routine, and more than once it falls into the same cliches that suffocates teen slasher films, in that characters act incredibly stupid and without reason. Also, the movie's mystery is a bit convoluted, and the ending seems almost irrelevant after all that's happened.

It's a good movie, with some very nice things to look at. The constantly falling rain will remind most people of SEVEN, and why not? TELL ME SOMETHING is basically a rehash of every American serial killer made in the '90s. Just because it's Korean doesn't make it anymore original, unfortunately.

6 out of 10

(go to www.nixflix.com for a more detailed review of this film and reviews of other foreign movies)

I've read the other comments and was surprised by the vast differences of opinion. This was a fantastic movie. It's not Seven and it's not Silence of the Lambs. It's all it's own. I'm an Anglo-American, but have grown up in Hawaii, a deeply Asian-influenced region. I think that makes a big difference in how you receive this movie. It has obvious American undertones, but sustains an Asian cultural subtext that some may not understand. The gore is secondary. Dialogue, too. Movement, real acting and phenomenal shooting makes this an event, not just a movie. The director, actors and even the lighting crew is showing us, not telling us a fantastic story.

The troubled cop beginning of this movie might feel problematic to some, but if you think about it, it really is telling you to not believe everything you think. You think this is going to be a film about one thing and it is about another thing. You think the killer is one character and it is another. Using all available to the genre and medium, the director wastes nothing. He uses music, cinemotagraphy, location, lighting and pacing to convey time, feeling and motive or inspiration if you will. Nothing is rushed and nothing is obvious. I loved that the longing the cop and the "victim" have for each other is so subtle, so quiet. It's almost smoldering and chaste at the same time.

The twists are fantastic, too. You are lead in one direction and you think, "Ah, ha. That's who I thought it was." and then you are told that is not correct. You are left second-guessing yourself to the very end.

A lot of people may feel unsatisfied with the ending because it doesn't tie everything up in a pretty bow. Why did the killer kill? What happens next? How did it happen? I like that. There is nothing more disturbing than being treated like a bumbling idiot by a director or screen writer. I want to think. I want to question. Just like the old saying if you have to have a joke explained to you, you don't get it. This movie needs no explanation. It needs critical thinking people to watch it. Just like reality, not everything is explained. This is a thinking-person's thriller. I certainly hope Hollywood does not re-make this film. It is perfect the way it is with it's Asian sensibilities and rhythm. I loved it!

It certainly is one of the best movies I've seen in a long time and probably the best thriller in recent memory.

The best scene in this movie involves a big plastic garbage bag left in an elevator. I don't want to spoil it, but let's just say that while I was pretty anti-elevator beforehand, now I wouldn't THINK of using one. There are some other good scenes involving garbage bags but they lack the sheer claustrophobic intensity of the elevator scene.

This is a sleek little thriller with elements borrowed in a truly cosmopolitan manner from Takeshi Kitano, Jean-Jacques Beineix and Quentin Tarantino, among others. In classic Noir tradition, it never seems to stop raining. (Back in the army I served with some guys who had just returned from Korea which, they informed me, has three kinds of weather: "Hot as a m'f'er, cold as a m'f'er and wet as a m'f'er." This movie confirms at least one-third of their insight.) It's a series of serene surfaces punctuated with corpses mutilated to some extent or other, but even the corpses exude a kind of serenity. It struck me as a good movie to watch on an airplane if you're afraid of flying, especially with a dubbed soundtrack like maybe "Genetic World" by Telepopmusik. (Most of you have probably heard at least one tune from that CD, "Breathe," it's in that car ad with the black guy driving around hallucinating various passengers.) The exotic stylized violence in the movie will distract you from the possibility of a mishap with the plane while you become tranquilizd by the almost beatific atmosphere and of course some really cute Korean chicks to look at. Best of all, the movie ends on an airplane, so your movie reverie should transfer smoothly to real life, especially if the stewardess comes gliding up to offer you a drink---hold on though, I haven't been on an airplane since the Eighties: do they even still serve alcohol?

As for the plot: oh hell, who knows, or cares. For the first five minutes it was fascinating with the cop getting grilled by the Korean equivalent of Internal Affairs because, apparently, a gangster named Park had been paying for his mother's nursing care. This gangster, if I remember right, was never actually seen, or mentioned again. Then they introduced another promising theme with a serial killer playing "musical body parts," but that also seemed to fall by the wayside once the "heroine" was introduced; most of the rest of the flick was the cop swooning over her in various ways. I stopped taking it seriously shortly afterwards. In one sequence that was so bizarre I'm not even sure I remember it right, the cop handed her his gun and then wandered off somewhere so he could get into some trouble for which his gun would have come in handy. In an American or European movie it would've been funny, but here it just left me scratching my head: "Gee, I don't know, they must have some unusual police procedures in the Orient...." There's no such thing as "calling for backup," it would seem. Maybe that makes an Asian cop "lose face"?

The film briefly threatened to come to life again in some late flashback scenes involving the heroine's eccentric artist father, but these elements didn't pan out. Ultimately we're left to draw our own conclusions. Hey, maybe the cop himself was the killer???? Or maybe he was dreaming the whole thing ... or the heroine was ... or the Red King ... or Roy Orbison .... Damn, I still miss him.

Maybe we need an English-language remake to straighten it all out?

"Tell Me Something" is a slick and stylish noirish Korean crime flick which tells of one cop's obsession to stop a serial killer who dismembers his victims and leaves body parts in trash bags to be found. Long on style and atmospherics, "TMS" becomes somewhat convoluted and disjointed, fails to connect on an emotional level, and ends with an unsatisfying conclusion. Nonetheless, audiences into grisly crime flix may enjoy the above average and artful execution.

Note - The VHS I watched was subtitled and, though dialogue is kept to a minimum, something may have been lost in the translation.

As I watched this film, I kept asking myself: What's the killer's motivation(s)? Not until the last few minutes did that become clear – well, as clear as it could be, given the narrative structure: reminiscent of the plot of Se7en (1995) but with the addition of a number of flashbacks that do more to confuse than to wholly satisfy.

And, there are obvious nods to not only Se7en, but Silence of the lambs (1991), also, particularly the cinematography and scene construction. At one point, echoing a scene from the former, Detective Cho (Suh-kyu Han) is lying exhausted in a rain-soaked alley way, while the killer sits waiting in his car, only two metres away; but instead of running Cho down, the killer screams away into the rain. In another scene, Cho is in an elevator and looks up to see bright blood dripping from the hatchway, and then also dripping down the wall; suddenly, the hatch breaks and buckets of blood cascade onto him. Add to that are the many interior scenes in run-down tenements and so forth, all evocative of the spooky corridors of those earlier films.

Still, the story is interesting, in a macabre way: across Seoul, body parts turn up in black plastic bags, but not all parts belong to the body. Somebody is perpetrating murder piecemeal. Enter Detective Cho, somewhat under suspicion for corruption but handed the case as way to redeem his career. More mixed-up body parts are discovered, but no hands with fingerprints. So, no clues. Until a head appears with teeth fillings that can be traced. One thing leads to another until Cho finds himself knocking on the door to Chae Su-Yeon (Eun-ha Shim), a young woman who knows all the male victims.

And so begins the real mystery for Cho - and the viewer. Through questioning and a series of flashbacks, it looks like Chae is in the frame; yet, murders continue while she is under surveillance. Suspicion falls upon her father, who, from Chae's account, is shown to be a sadistic, authoritarian figure; but he can't be found. And then there's a further nod to another thriller, Kiss the girls (1997), where the idea of a deadly duo is raised and then quashed when a prime suspect is himself reduced to a jumble of parts in a bag. All very messy for Cho, and increasingly so, because he appears to be attracted to the sweet Chae Su-Yeon, a complication he can do without, you would think.

In a way, I can also compare this film to the manner in which David Lynch constructs his films. When you see any of the more recent Lynch films, the real mystery (and challenge) is how to understand the story. For Tell Me Something, the problem is how to understand the mystery because, as I said, the killer's motivation(s) is the key. And yet, at the end, there is no absolute clarity, even though the identity is obvious. So if I provide my understanding here and now, I think that would detract from the pleasure of unraveling it for yourself. Meanwhile, I'll continue to ponder the significance of the title, the significance of which escapes me.

However, the production is excellent and the special effects (dismembered bodies, body pieces, heads, gutted torsos and so on) are so realistic they may cause some people more than just some discomfit. It will certainly satisfy the slash-and-gore set who liken this movie to Italian giallo cinema, exemplified by Dario Argento's works such as Deep Red (1977), Tenebre (1982) and others. It's classified as a horror film and I think that's justified, given the underpinnings of the story and the camera work.

I can't comment much on the acting as I'm not familiar with the actors or Korean cinema, having seen only a few; generally, however, I think the actors performed quite well.

Recommended for those who like a mixed bag of horror, mystery and thriller...and body parts.