Zapatillas rojas

I have just watched the Korean horror film The Red Shoes, and i thought that it was not too bad, but i have seen much better Asian horror films. It is about a woman called Sun-jae, whose husband is unfaithful and cheats on her with a lover, Sun-jae moves to a cheap apartment at Goksung Station, with her daughter Han Tae-soo. While she is travelling back home in the subway, Sun-jae finds a pair of pink shoes and brings them home with her. Her daughter Han Tae-soo starts to become fascinated by the shoes, that her mother has bought. but they bring greed and jealousy to whoever sees them, Sun-jae starts to have visions and nightmares about ghosts and blood. When her friend Kim-mi Hee steals the shoes, she has an accident and dies. She finds out that the of pink shoes that she found on a subway platform seems to bring a curse on whoever wears them. And rips them from the owners feet and taking the owners feet with them. Sun-jae tries to find out what is causing the curse to happen. i found this horror film to be not to bad to watch 4/10

I'm in a quandary over this film. Like many other reviewers have amply illustrated here, this film is like a Korean Klone in lots of ways. It borrows moves from the Ringu play-book, the Dark Water play-book, the Ju-On play-book, The Eye play-book...please stop me. It's got a daughter and mother all alone in the world facing supernatural evil. It's got hunched-over, black-haired teens with bad attitudes and osteoporosis floating around upside-down and showing up in elevators. It's got the cheating hubby, the young love interest, the entrepreneurial "young Asian professional female" slowly losing her mind. Most importantly, it's got the requisite cursed artifact (not a wig, not a videotape, not a pair of transplanted corneas, but a swanky set of pink stilettos that a particular ghost doesn't want any mortal wearing).

BUT GOSH DARN IT, I LIKED THIS FILM! I guess it says something if I feel compelled to excuse myself for this fact, but I really did care for the characters and the serious situation they are hopelessly trapped in. Indeed, I was hooked by the grue--people getting their feet forcibly removed gets my attention. The cinematography is colorful, and artful, and top notch--as we have come to expect from Korean directors. (Did you catch those cool on-purpose-out-of-focus shots? Fuzzy weirdness...) The music is actually pretty unique--the low-key guitar ditty that recurs off and on is melodic, and personal, and not overwrought. Yes, the plot "twists and turns" in terribly predictable ways: Could our protagonist really be the guilty one? Is it possible that we might find the answer to the horrible mystery by rifling through old newspaper copy in the library? Even though we've "properly buried" the red shoes with their owner, is it possible the evil will return nevertheless to wreak ultimate revenge? When we get to the end, will the decidedly downbeat narrative actually make very little sense? Yes, you've seen--and come to expect--it all.

But, darn it, this flick is done with such panache in a very gutsy way. The characters are carefully drawn, the direction is solid. And when you get right down to it, America simply does not make films like this. I don't think America ever will again. We used to make great, sad, horror films, but not anymore. We real horror fans have got to rely on films like "Bunhongsin" to get our fix. In fact, that's precisely why I give this film the benefit of the doubt.

'Bunhongshin' (Pink Shoes) is a fine example of the growing Korean film industry. While still lacking enough refinements for universal appeal, it still is an entertaining yarn and a fine scary movie.

A pair of bright pink shoes keep popping up on a subway line. For inexplicable reasons, any girl who sees them becomes violently attached to the shoes (to the point of beating anyone who might touch them), that is until someone/thing comes along and severs the girls feet as a penance for wearing the garment.

Visually top-notch, with nice color and camera usage. Most notable are the scare scenes; the imagery in these scenes is creepy and effective in conveying dread. Some limited optical effects and CG round out the package.

Performance wise, it's a mixed bag and where the film takes the biggest hit. Acting is suffice, but nothing special. The story just doesn't work; it is not only disjointed and uninvolved, it's also just plain difficult to understand what the hell happened in the end. As is the norm for many Korean film, the pacing is all kinds of wrong; taking way too long to make a point and dragging on way too many scenes needlessly.

For the spot-on horror imagery, 'Bunhongshin' is one to look out for, just try to ignore the scripting and pacing issues.

7/10

First of all I must say that I am puzzled about the statement on the DVD cover; 'genuinely creepy' and 'ghostly disturbing, violent and bloody' The Red Shoes is one of the year's must-see horror films'. I just wonder if I actually watched the same movie as whomever had written that.

The story is about a pair of haunted red shoes - yeah, exactly. Enough said! The storyline was a tad too silly for me and the entire movie was just lacking a proper red line throughout the entire storyline.

The movie wasn't spooky or scary, and it managed to stay afloat and pass as semi-watchable because of the acting performances put on by the cast. But the performances couldn't really manage to lift up the movie because the story was lacking the all-important spice. And as such, this movie was a below average experience.

South Korea do manage to put some really great horror movies out there, but "The Red Shoes" (aka "Bunhongsin") just wasn't one such occurrence.

The Red Shoes (2005), not to be confused with the 1948 drama romance movie is a brutal South-Korean horror flick about a pair of high heels who's owner is followed by jealousy, greed and death. Unlike the title should suggests these red shoes are in fact pink high heels but that could be seen as a metaphor for all the blood it is responsible for. You see our protagonist spiraling down into madness while people around her try to claim these shoes are getting punished with a brutal death.

It's your typical run of the mill haunted item horror movie with nothing too spectacular or special to differentiate the movie from others. Even though its stylish and definitely has some brutal scenes with great makeup effects the movie overall ended up to be very average. We have seen similar movies before and this movie definitely will find its audience somewhere but overall I don't think it's a movie to be remembered. Still a decent watch for you if you enjoy creepy Asian supernatural horror movies. [5,2/10]