Bunhongsin

'Bunhongshin' (Pink Shoes) is a fine example of the growing Korean film industry. While still lacking enough refinements for universal appeal, it still is an entertaining yarn and a fine scary movie.

A pair of bright pink shoes keep popping up on a subway line. For inexplicable reasons, any girl who sees them becomes violently attached to the shoes (to the point of beating anyone who might touch them), that is until someone/thing comes along and severs the girls feet as a penance for wearing the garment.

Visually top-notch, with nice color and camera usage. Most notable are the scare scenes; the imagery in these scenes is creepy and effective in conveying dread. Some limited optical effects and CG round out the package.

Performance wise, it's a mixed bag and where the film takes the biggest hit. Acting is suffice, but nothing special. The story just doesn't work; it is not only disjointed and uninvolved, it's also just plain difficult to understand what the hell happened in the end. As is the norm for many Korean film, the pacing is all kinds of wrong; taking way too long to make a point and dragging on way too many scenes needlessly.

For the spot-on horror imagery, 'Bunhongshin' is one to look out for, just try to ignore the scripting and pacing issues.

7/10

I have just watched the Korean horror film The Red Shoes, and i thought that it was not too bad, but i have seen much better Asian horror films. It is about a woman called Sun-jae, whose husband is unfaithful and cheats on her with a lover, Sun-jae moves to a cheap apartment at Goksung Station, with her daughter Han Tae-soo. While she is travelling back home in the subway, Sun-jae finds a pair of pink shoes and brings them home with her. Her daughter Han Tae-soo starts to become fascinated by the shoes, that her mother has bought. but they bring greed and jealousy to whoever sees them, Sun-jae starts to have visions and nightmares about ghosts and blood. When her friend Kim-mi Hee steals the shoes, she has an accident and dies. She finds out that the of pink shoes that she found on a subway platform seems to bring a curse on whoever wears them. And rips them from the owners feet and taking the owners feet with them. Sun-jae tries to find out what is causing the curse to happen. i found this horror film to be not to bad to watch 4/10

South Korean supernatural horror (supposedly very loosely based on Hans Christian Andersen's tale of the same name).

Sun-jae is in an unhappy marriage. After catching her husband having sex with another woman she moves out with her young daughter, Tae-su, into a rundown apartment block. One day she spots a pair of high-heeled shoes apparently abandoned in a subway car and takes them home. Immediately she becomes obsessed with them. Back at her apartment, daughter Tae-su tries to take them from her, becoming just as obsessed. When Sun-jae's best friend, Kim Mi-hee, visits she *also* becomes obsessed with them, going so far as to steal them for herself. However, as she's walking home she's killed by an unseen force, When her body is found the stolen shoes are missing, somehow soon returned to Sun-jae. It seems that every female who comes into contact with the shoes becomes overcome with a compulsion to own them and a willingness to do anything to achieve that. Sun-jae eventually finds a link between the shoes and a Japanese dancer in 1940s Japan-occupied Korea, named Keiko; the shoes were central to a tragic series of events - which seem to have left behind a malign influence and a desire for retribution.

Actress Kim Hye-soo is very good as Sun-jae, and Park Yeon-ah is terrific as Tae-su, spending the whole movie running scared, sad, or very angry (I can't find a date of birth for her, but she looks to be about eight years old). The basic idea is promising. But the storyline is shown in such a confusing way, the film feels about 15 minutes too long, and it's unbelievably 'J-horror generic' (I realise it's South Korean). I'm happy to watch a ton of Asian horror movies about cursed objects, past wrongs, and revenge-obsessed, long-haired ghost girls - so long as they're *good*. This feels as though director Yong-gyun Kim watched all the Ring and Grudge movies, and - especially - Dark Water, and then just mixed and matched parts he liked. There's a very strong, atmospheric opening inside a deserted subway station that really raises the expectations; it's a shame the rest of the film doesn't live up to it. 5.5/10.

I'm in a quandary over this film. Like many other reviewers have amply illustrated here, this film is like a Korean Klone in lots of ways. It borrows moves from the Ringu play-book, the Dark Water play-book, the Ju-On play-book, The Eye play-book...please stop me. It's got a daughter and mother all alone in the world facing supernatural evil. It's got hunched-over, black-haired teens with bad attitudes and osteoporosis floating around upside-down and showing up in elevators. It's got the cheating hubby, the young love interest, the entrepreneurial "young Asian professional female" slowly losing her mind. Most importantly, it's got the requisite cursed artifact (not a wig, not a videotape, not a pair of transplanted corneas, but a swanky set of pink stilettos that a particular ghost doesn't want any mortal wearing).

BUT GOSH DARN IT, I LIKED THIS FILM! I guess it says something if I feel compelled to excuse myself for this fact, but I really did care for the characters and the serious situation they are hopelessly trapped in. Indeed, I was hooked by the grue--people getting their feet forcibly removed gets my attention. The cinematography is colorful, and artful, and top notch--as we have come to expect from Korean directors. (Did you catch those cool on-purpose-out-of-focus shots? Fuzzy weirdness...) The music is actually pretty unique--the low-key guitar ditty that recurs off and on is melodic, and personal, and not overwrought. Yes, the plot "twists and turns" in terribly predictable ways: Could our protagonist really be the guilty one? Is it possible that we might find the answer to the horrible mystery by rifling through old newspaper copy in the library? Even though we've "properly buried" the red shoes with their owner, is it possible the evil will return nevertheless to wreak ultimate revenge? When we get to the end, will the decidedly downbeat narrative actually make very little sense? Yes, you've seen--and come to expect--it all.

But, darn it, this flick is done with such panache in a very gutsy way. The characters are carefully drawn, the direction is solid. And when you get right down to it, America simply does not make films like this. I don't think America ever will again. We used to make great, sad, horror films, but not anymore. We real horror fans have got to rely on films like "Bunhongsin" to get our fix. In fact, that's precisely why I give this film the benefit of the doubt.

This is a decent adaptation of this particular fairy tale. It is about having something offered to you that you shouldn't take, aren't forced to take but by overwhelming compulsion, you take it anyway. This leads to disastrous problems because once you indulge, the item has literally become a part of you that you simply cannot get rid of easily.

I liked this for the most part. I thought the acting. costuming and effects were done well. There were some scenes that were a bit dark and that sorta bugged me. I just felt like I couldn't see enough. Nice little horror movie.