Ryeong

The teenager Min Ji-won (Ha-Neul Kim) is suffering from amnesia and being haunted by weird visions. When she meets her former high school friend Oh Yu-jeong (Hie-ju Jeon), she receives a picture of her high school group of friends: Kim Eun-seo (Bin), who had recently died; Shin Mi-kyeong (Yi Shin), who is in the hospital and Eun-jeong (Yun-ji Lee). Ji-won questions who took the picture, and when she visits her former friends, she recalls Han Su-in (Sang-mi Nam), a girl that was badly treated and humiliated by their group, disclosing her past and the fate of Su-in and finding a scary hidden truth.

"The Ghost" is a creepy and scary movie, but like other Asian horror movies (for example, "The Tale of the Twin Sisters" or "Rinne"), has a complex, confused and intriguing twist in the end. My first difficulty was to associate the names of the characters performed by the gorgeous actresses with their faces. I repeated the first chapters three times to make this association. When Ji-won meets her mother in the end unraveling the mystery, I repeated three or four times to clarify the twist. If I were in the movie theater, I would not have the chance of rewinding and understanding the plot. But Asian horror movie is my favorite genre and I liked this film a lot, and I startled many times, especially with the scary atmosphere and the soundtrack. This is the type of movie that deserves to be watched at least two times. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): Not Available

A young female college student Ji-won who has recovered from a serious accident,which led her to have amnesia.As she attempts to put her past together and get her current life straightened out,she slowly comes to realize that those she associated with in high school are now turning up dead and all are keyed to water.As fragments of her memories and the people she knew come together,she experiences weird visions of a girl drowning and what she thinks is a ghost following her around.Could there be a connection?"Dead Friend" is obviously inspired by Hideo Nakata's "Ringu" and "Dark Water",but it certainly offers some genuine scares.The most terrifying moments in "Dead Friend" come from the appearance of a ghostly girl with drenched hair and one evil eye looking out from the mass of hair.The climax is extremely creepy and surprising,so I was pleased.The cinematography is gorgeous with a lovely green look and the sound effects are awesome.Watch "Dead Friend" alone in the dark and it will creep you out.8 out of 10.

I had high expectations going into this. I love ghost stories and I love Asian horror. After recently seeing A Tale of Two Sisters (another Korean ghost/horror movie) and loving it I thought this would be scary, intelligent and original. However, this was far from original, in fact, it was a mix-up of Ju-On: The Grudge and Dark Water. The ghost looked like a mixture of Sadako from (Ring) and Kayako (Ju-On) and the water element has been used before in Ring and Dark Water. The director does manage to conjure up some atmosphere and an interesting enough story to keep the movie going but it's not enough to disguise the many stolen elements (and scenes!) The acting wasn't anything spectacular and the score sounded very familiar to The Grudge's. The ending was a surprise, and a good one at that. It caught me unaware and it did make me think a bit after. Overall it seems the good and the bad outweighed each other and the movie for me was just average. Atmospheric and interesting enough to keep me watching but too unoriginal for my liking.

2½/5

I received this Corean film for free when I purchased a bunch of other titles from YesAsia.com. I didn't really want it, but every time I deleted a free title, this one would pop up. Eventually, I consented to receive this one for free.

This is a horror film, as you can tell from the title, and is not related to the U.S. film bearing the same name. The setup is this: There's an amnesiac woman who starts seeing funny things. People who she used to know start to wind up dead. Spooky goings on, I say. Spooky.

Personally, I wasn't terribly frightened during the course of the film, although the jump-scares were sometimes effective, but at other times failed to startle me. The central conceit of the film (the amnesia) is a little silly, but I suppose that's what you deal with in horror films. In this one, it allows the film to be a mystery as well, as the young woman tries to recollect the past. The end conceits are a little forced and a bit hard to buy, personally, but it does help the film to be a little bit more than a total genre knockoff.

Unfortunately, the film still ends up being less than impressive. The acting isn't terrible and the overall direction is easy to take in. It's just that the story is ho-hum. I suppose you could do a lot worse; this is mildly entertaining stuff. 6/10.

DEAD FRIEND is yet another Asian ghost story featuring the now clichéd long-black-haired-dead-girl-out-for-revenge. There is absolutely nothing new here in terms of plot or even character; if you've seen THE RING, TOMIE, PHONE or any of the other countless Asian imports than you've already seen DEAD FRIEND and plot breakdown would be as redundant as this film itself.

While the movie's plot and structure lack in originality, DEAD FRIEND betters many of its' contemporaries by showcasing some solid acting and beautiful cinematography.

If you're addicted to these ghost/revenge films as most of us are to the equally uninspiring slasher genre than DEAD FRIEND is worth a viewing strictly to add another notch in your belt.