Inhyeongsa

It was a great idea and I always think that dolls coming alive are rather creepy. At the beginning the church like building in the woods is really good although inside most of this is a set. The dolls, especially their eyes, are really cool but when we get down to the story it is rather silly. They sit down and eat several times and it is not too good as they give us some of the story which we never believe for a moment. I think every now and again there are great moments and it is very good when we get close-ups of hands. Creeping around someones back, across the floor, within cuffs of hands covered with blood or not but otherwise most people are standing around or screaming. The lift and the cellar with close-ups are okay but when we see the set it is just not good. It's unfortunate that all the dolls look so new and the sets and Chun Ho-jin playing as the curator looks just as bored as us.

I couldn't disagree more with those who says this is a lousy movie. Me and my friend went to see it during the Stockholm film festival and this was actually one of my favorite movies during the festival. Dolls being used in horror movies aren't something new but I haven't seen that many movies were it has been as well carried out as it is in this movie. The atmosphere, the setting, the actors, the camera-work.. everything is just beautiful. And they really work well with each other. Now if you expect this film to be another Grudge or Ring then you probably won't like it. But if your out for a good, stylized scare then it's perfect. Even though it's pretty predictable and at some times laughable I still recommend this to anyone who likes horror flicks. Go see it. Now.

A cute sculptor Hae-mi and four other people are invited to a gallery of dolls.They are excited to pose to be a doll model.Superintendent Mr. Choi and Jae-won a doll-maker are the hosts who invite them to this gallery.After just being in the house a short while strange things start to happen to each one of the newly arrived guests and there are also other strange things going on there,like a man being chained in the basement and some weird acting girl in a red dress showing up every now and then.I must admit that the dolls in "The Doll Master" are spooky as hell.However the climax is disappointing and the pace is slow.Still "The Doll Master" is decent enough to watch it once.6 out of 10.

Tale of curse that's spawned by the killing of a doll maker who made a life like doll of the woman he loved. The doll comes to revenge the descendants of those who killed the doll maker in modern day Korea.

The movie is well made. The visuals are stunningly good. Plot is pretty exciting, but acting by some of the actors are spotty that takes away from the near perfect production of this film. Korean movies have made a giant leap forward in the 21st century, and it shows in this movie. I think this movie is better produced than some of the venerable Japanese horror movies.

The actors are all very good looking. In this sense many of the K movies out does Hollywood produced movies. But as mentioned earlier, in this particular movie, acting could have been better on few of the scenes.

Good horror film from Korea, and is worth a watch if you're an Asian horror movie fan.

I wandered into Blockbuster with a friend the other night having decided that we were too broke and too lazy to do active. She decided she wanted to watch Closer, which seemed like such a repellant idea that I had to rent another film for once she'd gone to bed. Looking around I didn't see much that interested me, but saw The Doll Master in the new releases section. Just based on the cover sleeve (A woman with a doll-like face crying tears of blood) I thought this would be interesting enough to rent.

As for the film itself, watching it in an almost empty house, with all the lights turned off it was pretty scary. I must admit I've always had a bit of a phobia of dolls since I was a kid (and watched an awful film called Asylum, one of the stories in it involved a mental patient creating a doll which killed people. Lame, but scary at the time) and the first three quarters of this film really hit the spot for me. The first half hour in particular was awesome. The creepy foreboding atmosphere really set the scene well, and without moving the dolls seemed genuinely threatening. But unfortunately as soon as they did start to move it all got a bit cheesy, I was a bit disappointed when moments that could have been genuinely frightening made me laugh because of the way they were filmed.

As for the characters, it's a horror film, you're not really expecting anything memorable. I found I remembered names and faces better than most Asian horror films I've seen, which suggests there must have been some hidden character development that I didn't consciously notice. The typical stereotypes are out in force in this movie each one having some kind of character quirk that sets them apart from the others, from shy and quiet Yeong-ha and her doll Damien, to the outgoing bimbo Seon-yeong.

The plot itself was fairly cool, even though the ending, which bought together many of the loose strands of plot, seemed a bit confused and didn't really do anything for me, although it did have a couple of really cool plot-twists that I won't ruin here. The basic plot is a bunch of kids are invited to be modelled as dolls by a famous reclusive old doll maker, they have to stay in the creepy house (adorned with scary dolls, some big some small) and things start to happen as our heroine Hae-mi starts to explore areas of the house and things start happening to the other inhabitants.

Overall, I would definitely recommend the film, not to watch with too many people as some of the moments would probably make you laugh if surrounded by friends, but as something too watch on your own in the dark, with the windows and doors open just a bit, just in case any dolls feel like watching with you. It really does leave you guessing for most of the film, allowing you to go off on wild conspiracy theories only to completely destroy them later on. If you really get into it and ignore it's cheesiness in places I can guarantee you'll check under your bed before you go to sleep and maybe even leave the lights on.

Or maybe that's just me :P As for Closer, it was OK but I preferred this.