Let's face it (no pun intended) the best and most influential horror films from the start of 21st century came from Asia, mostly Japan and more recently Korea. Of course the influences aren't just on our own domestic horror films but on other Asian films as well. Films like Korea's FACE for example, which is really a second tier film but still one worth seeing, especially given the large selection of crap that hovers dangerously nearby on the DVD shelves as a genre fan goes out to rent or more riskily buy a horror film to watch. Given those options, I'd say this is more of a rental.
I stay away from plot synopsis in reviews as much as possible, but the one on this box is perhaps typically of this distributor, Tartan, not really what the film is about. The focus here is on a forensic facial reconstruction worker whose daughter he, and we, quickly believe has been given a transplanted heart from a donor who is really a victim of a serial killer. This premise is an excuse to see the ghost crawling on a ceiling and peeking out through the now overly familiar long straight black hair with its overly familiar blood red eyes. One scene has the little girl open her closet and act afraid, it really looks like she has a THE GRUDGE poster in her closet, it's that much alike. For all the very professionally done and controlled style of the movie and the well timed scares, the scares themselves are now mostly been-there-done-that in other Asian films. And every scene in the first third of the movie is about some kind of scare or another.
Then the movie becomes more about the mystery of who is the killer and the scares mostly go away. The wrap up of the killer's identity is a typical and slightly confused rush job. There are too many early scenes that end in a jump and too few later on for the film's own good. The well acted and ultimately important romantic subplot is fine other than the fact that the set up for it is ridiculous, really a cliche, in this case from American films, of the good natured but not too bright female assistant/side kick who eventually charms our hero into caring for her despite the fact she has no reason to be there in the first place.
First time feature director Hyun has done numerous short films and says in his interview that he doesn't see this as being any different than those. Well, yes and no, he doesn't know how to pace a feature yet, though this one isn't overlong at 88 minutes.
For a film about the rarely used and slightly controversial procedure of basically sculpting a clay face over a skull in an attempt to identify the victim, it doesn't do enough with the procedure. Where is the scene with the clay face talking or bleeding or melting? Instead we cutaway to the always exciting (not) nearby computer monitors where the CG image of the head can spin around (you see it looks more 3D if it spins around) as it has skin magically morph onto it, etc. There were opportunities here to do more original and specific scares related to the premise, than the end result shows.
Director Hyun also reveals in a rather poorly shot interview (which ends abruptly) that his intentions with this film weren't to make a brutal ghost film but a more human one. He does succeed at this, he does not however, despite his claims in the same interview, succeed at fresh horror and ghost imagery. It almost seems like perhaps someone else "got to" the film after he did, as he speaks about imagery that is not in the finished film. A bit more of this imagery is seen in two trailers (one hidden as an Easter Egg) that might have helped overcome the GRUDGE/RING elements that pull this otherwise worthy film down a notch.
The image on the cover art is striking, more so than the actual appearance of the face in FACE. Tartan's DVD presentation is all pro (though for an Asian Extreme movie there isn't much in it gore wise or exploitation wise to call extreme) with moving menu pages and the always welcome DTS as a sound option. The three separate interviews with cast, crew, director may not be action packed but they are also mostly hype free and that alone is kind of refreshing and a nice inclusion.
The surround sound is used effectively if not perhaps as much as it could have been. The music score is effective if unmemorable the same can be said of the actors' performances. FACE is a real film, not a pandering festival of ineptitude like the last 5 horror rentals I've seen. There is one interesting ghost appearance involving a type of split screen effect that you can see works even better in the trailer. Again, I wonder who's responsible for some of the final edit choices in the film, I get the feeling it could have worked better than it does.
Then again, this is still much better than most of what's out there to choose from and better than many American remakes and films "inspired" by Asia's leadership in the field.
