Réunion sanglante

Dae-wung Lim's 'Seuseung-ui Eunhye' is pretty much another East Asian slasher flick made in the traditional fashion. It starts off slow and drags on. For a slasher flick, there isn't that much slashing which isn't necessarily a bad thing provided that the story's good enough. But, once the slashing starts, it goes on until almost the end. The torture scenes are quite creative and well executed. Unlike the Hollywood slasher flicks, the story here has layers and at least some of the twists make sense. Yet, it's not without its share of flaws. Plot holes are abundant and the pacing is poor. The dialogues do ramble on at some point. The performances, especially those of Seong-won Jang and Mi-hee Oh are better than what one usually expects from such movies. This certainly isn't the best of East Asian horror and slasher but it's not a bad suggestion for those who enjoy this kind of stuff.

A group of adults arrive at the home of their dying elementary school teacher for a reunion. Things take a tragic turn as each recalls their true feelings for their former instructor. There are raw nerves, trauma, and grisly vengeance seething just beneath the cordial surface. What began as a happy occasion devolves into an orgy of insanity and murder!

Another classic from South Korea, BLOODY REUNION lives up to its title!...

Korean horror movies are taking break from haunting-spirit-possessed-unanimated-object or long-haired-ghost. Instead, in To Sir, With Love (TSWL), director I'm Dae-wuong is revisited the 80's slasher intact with the very formula. Throw in some contemporary Korean thrill and drama, TSWL is surely to entertain and trust me, this nothing to do with Sidney Poitier's classic.

The story revolves around some twenty something people, groups for a reunion with their former teacher in a small countryside cottage. Most of the student obviously has a serious grudge against their teacher who's now is wheel-chair bound. As the event continues, the grudge slowly unfolded, even the teacher seems doesn't remember. When the night comes, someone wearing a paper cut rabbit mask start making bloody carnage, one by one, in a grisly body count. Anyway, you know the drill! If you watch a lot of horror movies, you will easily constructing the plot and even though there are hint of Jason Voorhees-like tale, where the teacher keeps his deformed child in the basement, you still able to figure out the killer is and it's including the twist the end.

Therein lies the problem with TSWL. The genuine story does never exist while some genuine scares are building well enough. Yes, the positive aspects are TSWL succeed in build the tension with some interesting set-ups. The gore it self is nicely done. Somehow we expect it just could be much better. The last Korean slasher I watched is 'Bloody Beach', which is fairly good. But it years ago. Now, comes the match, TSWL.

Despite the flaws, TSWL is definitely worth to watch, especially if you fans of Korean Horror. After some tired Sadako's clone invading the Korean cinema-scene, it's time for something new.

Woah. Like seriously, wow. I bought this movie at Borders Books a couple weeks ago because the cover looked cool and it's been shitting on my shelf since then building up a good weeks worth of dust before I decided to put this into my DVD player tonight and by god, I wasn't expecting to be hit this hard by this film.

This movie, no, masterpiece managed to hit me at every level possible. It was gripping, it was scary, it was gory, it was disgusting, it was suspenseful, it was daring. I haven't felt this amount of uncomfortable edgyness while watching a movie in a long time. It really scared me. The strange part about this? All it simply is is a slasher movie. At it's core, that's what the movie tries to be... But it manages to be so much more than simply your cut and dry slasher movie.

It manages to defy slasher movie convention at every turn. Instead of a bunch of assholes who you could never care about at all, this movie is casted with characters that each manage to go through their own ups and downs throughout the film and each manage to come together to form a cohesive whole of a character. They aren't cut and dry jocks or cheerleaders like you'd find in a modern, every day slasher. No, no, no. These are people, people with problems, people with lives, people who are tortured by their own lives. I managed to be gripped with each of their stories as they were told, including that of the most despicable of them.

Then the ending occurs, and really manages to surprise me. I wasn't expecting it. I thought it had already gone through it's "twist" by then, but that twist turned out to be a red herring. I'm being vague simply because, well, I don't want to spoil it for anyone else who decides to pick up this brilliant slasher masterpiece. I'd say it's the best slasher I've seen since Halloween, my personal favorite horror movie and one of my two favorite movies ever made. It's that damn good. I'm definitely adding it to my top 10 horror movie list. I recommend you all pick this up, it was one of the best damn blind buys I've ever had.

When it comes to horror, it is my opinion that Asian cinema knows how to go for the jugular. Possibly due to the fact that they have less restrictions than North America - what with the MPAA able to make or break you depending on their rating and all. Asian cinema has no boundaries and if you want scares, blood and those scenes which have you turning your head away just to catch your breath, South Korea and Japan are two of the trendsetters in the industry.

So when the copy of Bloody Reunion was placed in my mail slot for viewing, I was expecting a slaughter of cringe inducing deaths. Instead, what I got was a relatively routine film about revenge that was watchable but did not provide me with scenes that I wanted to run to the water-cooler at work the next day to try and explain.

Bloody Reunion is about a bunch of students who go back to visit their dying teacher who, as we find out in flashbacks, was as insensitive a mentor as Don Rickles would be at a celebrity roast. The class reunion takes place some sixteen years after they all left the school and each of the former students have a moment of screen time to explain to us why they are so angry (then why did they go back?).

As we would hope, once everyone is settled, the killing begins and like most horror films, anyone who leaves the pack and goes somewhere on their own is pretty much done for.

The killing in the film is a mixed bag. Someone is forced to eat razor blades which is somewhat cool and original. Yet another gets an office desk utensil applied to their eyeball and the third gets his tortured by ants running into in through his ears. I couldn't help but think of the ceramic 'Hear no Evil. See no Evil. Speak no Evil" monkey's that I have sitting on my end table upstairs as each of the three victims were paraded out in gruesome form.

The whole movie is actually a flashback with a detective trying to piece together what happened to the poor young visitors to the cottage. All signs lead to a deformed child that was the property of the teacher back when they were all children. Looking like the son of the monster from The Goonies, this poor kid wore a paper rabbit's mask to hide his hideousness. As the story is described to the detective, the killer also donned a rabbit's mask. Hmmmmmmmmm.

I wanted to enjoy Bloody Reunion and with quotes such as "The best Korean Horror film in years" and "The best slasher pic to come along in a while.", I was more than expecting the ho-hum response that it solicited out of me.

To note, it wasn't a complete disaster. The killings were more original than anything produced for the North American mass audiences and the ending is somewhat interesting even if it is unnecessary.

On a whole though, I can't give the film a recommendation. There are just too many better Korean horror films on the market and this one failed to make its mark.

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