Uahan Geojinmal

Korean drama never ceases to amaze me. I got the Korean bug few years back and its kind of chronic now.

I liked the premises of this flick and started watching it with moderate expectations. But to my surprise it blew me away right from the very start.

The plot is very plausible and doesn't resort to violence/romance/ too many teary scenes to make an impact. The acting is seems to be a strong point of every actor involved. They fall into place easily and seem extremely natural. The plot too isn't very slow and unravels at perfect pace without hiding or disclosing anything too quickly. The behaviors of the kids when they think they are fault, the repentance of a mother and a sister seemed very appropriate and well placed.

Overall a must watch film for everyone.

Thread of Lies is a weird one. After I finished watching it at the cinema, many people clapped, but afterwards it was apparent that not everyone liked it and some had only clapped out of peer pressure. Why was this? Well, the film begins with the suicide of high-school protagonist Man-ji's younger sister, Cheon-ji. Man-ji begins to wonder what brought her sister to kill herself, and sets out to find out why. Here is where the problem may lie for some: some of the audience thought they were going to watch a murder mystery, but in truth, Thread of Lies is anything but.

It's a heartfelt look at how Cheon-ji's death impacts and changes the people around her, even people who seem to have nothing to do with the actual plot. As Man-ji investigates her sister's death she meets the people whom Cheon-ji surrounded herself with. Despite her already being dead for the majority of the movie, there are numerous flashback scenes of conversations with her and the characters she meets. These flashback scenes subtly establish the personalities of each characters. Each line of dialogue tests how each character reacts to certain stimuli, and it all pulls violently at the heartstrings. The structure of the story is odd and slightly wonky; the titual "thread"" does not appear until the halfway mark, and the ending could be said to be a bit soft. Yet it brilliantly follows the various stages of grief. Surprisingly, not many films about loss actually do this.

There is another reviewer here who gave this film a 4/10, saying it was a complete and utter waste of time (if he is reading: wassup fellow Cinemagic attendee!). He called it a Japanese bootleg version of a movie based on 1000s of stories centering around loss, and that he was sure there was another movie like this in cinemas right now. Boy was I not happy to hear this. Firstly, the whole "Asain bootleg" term is racist and doesn't exemplify that you gave this film a fair review. Secondly, considering that you only guess that there is a film like Thread of Lies in cinemas right now, it is evident that you hadn't watched many, if any, films about loss, and as such this film is apparently similar to what you believe such a film would be like.

This film was also called out for apparently having quirkiness for the sake of it. The truth is, while there some sporadic events that were a bit silly, they never had an impact on the plot. For all you or I know, having not frequently watched Korean cinema, these could merely be tropes found in such films.

Overall, despite having slightly iffy pacing and a small amount of silly moments, Thread of lies is a wonderful reflection on how flawed characters react when having to face their actions. Almost all of the characters are impossible not to love due, because, as can be the way with humans, some are decent people who do bad things.

If there was a machine that could produce a film based on 1000's of others centered on family struggles or a family coping with the loss of a loved one but instead you got the Japanese bootleg version it would make this film. You don't need to watch a foreign film to watch this film. There is probably a film like this already out in theaters right now. The writer of this film must be an old out of touch douche bag that hates kids because these schoolgirls are unrealistically horrible cows who seem to have little to none character development that would give reasonable context as to why they would act the way they do. I felt as if I was just watching actors spout over used, clichéd dialogue that I've heard millions of times. The writers are so self conscious about how boring and underwhelming their screenplay is that they decided to add in as much unnecessary quirkiness just for the sake of being different. The soundtrack sounded like rejected piano music from Forrest Gump as it was forcibly used to squeeze out as much drama as possible. The film's over sentimentality aggravated me as this film had the potential to be an intriguing mystery drama yet fell flat on its face. The production aspect of the film was done very competently and the performances were pretty good but overall this film is an extremely disappointing dud.

Usually films that fit into the genre tend to sway towards 'what happened?' or 'why did this happen?', Thread of Lies takes the route of how it impacts those around her. While there is still the mystery on the side, it doesn't feel like the focal point. While still being a school drama (partly told through flashback), it is just as good as a character drama.

And characters is it's strongest element. From the 4 lead actresses down to the supporting cast, everyone was good. Standout's for me being Kim Hyang-Gi (Cheon-Ji), Chun Woo-Hee (Mi-Ran) & Kim Hie-Ae (Hyeon-Sook). Credit to the writers and director too, I felt the pacing was good, easy to follow but always finding out more and more towards character motivations.

And yes, being Korean it has a few quirky, lighthearted scenes. But it's never too crazy and fit's the characters personalities. And I'm fine with that, if not we would all be boarding the train to Depressionville. The score was decent too, it was kept soothing and it never went to overpowering levels.. even during emotional embraces and such. Which is a nice change of pace as there are many films which will try and burst your eardrums.

Overall a very solid film from top to bottom. You will not find many schoolroom dramas better, I would recommend to any drama fan out there.