Antarctic Journal

This movie begins with a party of 6 South Korean explorers slowly trekking their way to a point in Antarctica called the "pole of inaccessibility" which owes its name due to the fact that is so far from any shoreline and extremely difficult to reach by foot. Along the way they find a strange marker which happens to have a box buried directly underneath it. Upon opening the box they find a journal written by an ill-fated British team over 80 years earlier. However, they soon find that their destinies begin to mirror each other as one by one the members of their team begin to die. Now rather than reveal any more I will just say that this was an interesting film which certainly contains some beautiful scenery. Unfortunately, as the movie progressed I found it more and more difficult to fully comprehend. The ending was especially perplexing. That's not to say that it was necessarily bad by any means but I believe it was unnecessarily convoluted. That being the case, I have rated this movie accordingly. Average.

An expedition team led by Choe Do-hyung marches on toward the Antarctic Point of Inaccessibility,one of the most difficult places to reach on the planet Earth and trodden upon only once by a Soviet team in 1958.Min-jae,formally trained in mountain climbing at Switzerland and in awe of the charismatic Do-hyung,is joined by the bookish navigator Young-min,the rather thuggish but sharp communications expert Seong-hoon,the genial cook Geun-chan and the electronics specialist Jae-kyung.When Min-jae discovers an old journal left by a British expedition 80 years ago,he begins to notice odd parallels between the journal entries and his team's experience."Antarctic Journal" is an impressive horror film that slightly resembles "R-Point" and "The Thing".There are some genuinely unnerving moments and Kenji Kawai's score evokes the utterly cold and relentless atmosphere of Antarctica.Unfortunately the film leaves a lot of questions unanswered.Still it gets a solid 8 out of 10 from this viewer.

This movie is a rewarding one BUT you will only be rewarded if you watch it twice. Then you will figure out what is happening and I gotta say, been a long time since I had enjoyed a movie like this.

Ps. For young horror fans, this is not that.

For Adult horror fans or mature audience, this is what you're looking for *Thumbs up*

Wish we would get more actors like the ones in this movie, this is gold classic of a movie where you get isolation, atmosphere, story and a mystery to understand. Movie is very mysterious and symbolic, once you get all the points understood, you will say a big thanks to the movie makers.

Antarctic Journal (2005) is a South Korean survival thriller movie written by Bong Joon-ho and it is be far the weakest entry in this man's filmography.

Positives for Antarctic Journal (2005): I'm one of those people who does get a kick out of these survival thriller movies. I think the actors all do a great job with their performances. There are moments filled with tension that I found to be very effective. And finally, the ending was nice.

Negatives for Antarctic Journal (2005): This movie is a bit messy with the execution and a lot of that has to due with Bong Joon-ho not being the director for this movie. There are moments where I dozed off and lost interest in the story. And finally, the movie has some not really good pacing where it was dragging the story in spots.

Overall, Antarctic Journal (2005) is a fine survival thriller movie from South Korea, but it's one of the weaker attempts in that genre for me.

Funny thing about Antarctic Journal is that it reminds a lot of The last winter which I have seen few weeks ago. There are many similarities... the setting in the arctic desert, a small group of people growing desperate and paranoid, chilly atmosphere, nice pictures, minimalistic score. Just like The last winter this movie looks like its going somewhere, hints at several ghosts, hallucinations or in this case inner fears and then ends up stuck in this endless nothingness. Antarctic Journal is a very slow paced and atmosphere driven movie, spending more time on introducing the characters than going for cheap ghost thrills. After all I think the drawer "horror movie" is plain wrong for the movie, its rather a psychological drama to me. Anyway, the ending to me was just a let down as in last winter, although more consequent. Maybe I didn't quite get the idea behind the movie because the ending is pretty confusing so you don't know whats truth or hallucination. But like another comment here said the movie doesn't leave you with the feeling of wasted time... its calm, far from chilling, rather strangely interesting and keeps your attention till the end. Maybe my rating might be too bad considering this and the nice cinematography but still I was expecting far more from the set up. Judge for yourself.