Hayanbang

UNBORN BUT FORGOTTEN lacks originality to the nth degree. It is nothing more than a retread of every post-RINGU movie that's come out of Asia in the last 5 years or so. The film actually exchanges "videotape" with "website" and there you have it. Aside from the usual flattering South Korean aesthetics, there's nothing here for anyone looking for a good time. It is, in a nutshell, OLD.

3 out of 10

I am a huge fan of South Korean movies and find myself rooting for any movie coming from there. I am one of the few that feel South Korea has started to outpace Japan in making quality movies.

That being said, this movie was AWFUL. It made no sense, it wasn't scary, and doesn't even qualify as a cheap knockoff of"The Ring" which is what I believe they were shooting for. You are far better off with "Phone" "Koma" or the superb "Tale of Two Sisters" if you want a horror movie out of South Korea.

If you are looking for other movies out of Korea I would highly recommend "Brotherhood of War", "Joint Security Area", and the instant classic "Oldboy".

"Unborn But Forgotten" is essentially a Korean horror movie that on the surface seems to be nothing more than a rip off of the Japanese "Ringu" movies. But once you get further into the plot, it is revealed that the movie is more than just so. Think "Fear.com" mixed with "Ringu" and "The Unborn", then you have the end result that is "Unborn But Forgotten".

The story; women die approximately two weeks after they have logged into a mysterious web page that draws them in and lets the women have a scene of their own deaths. But just before dying the women becomes pregnant, even though they weren't pregnant prior to dying. Han Su-jin (played by Eun-ju Lee) moves into the apartment where a woman died, and cyber detective Lee Seok (played by Jun-ho Jeong) is on the case. What is the reason behind this mysterious, supernatural deaths?

For a horror movie, I found "Unborn But Forgotten" to be rather dull, there were the odd moments where the director tried to spook you with a shock scene, but it didn't really mount up to anything grand. I am not saying that it is a boring movie, far from it. It just wasn't scary. If anything, then it was intriguing and thought provoking.

The movie is nicely shot and well edited, and there is a great production value to it, which really helped the movie along. Plus the acting performances were really great. I can't recall having seen either Jun-ho Jeong or Eun-ju Lee prior to this movie though.

"Unborn But Forgotten" is not your average Korean ghost movie, because there is no lady in a white gown with black hair covering her face, so that was a nice breath of fresh air to the supernatural ghost genre for once. However, "Unborn But Forgotten" really didn't stand out, and there are many far better Korean horror movies available.

But if you are fed up with the ladies in white gowns and black hair covering their faces type of ghost movies from Asia, then give "Unborn But Forgotten" a chance, it might just be the type of supernatural thriller you are looking for.

Very well-filmed Korean horror film is essentially Fear.com--women die two weeks after viewing a web site. The only new wrinkle here is that the woman appear to have given birth just before their deaths even though friends and family state that the women weren't pregnant. Korean movies always seem to have excellent production values, and this one is no exception, but other than a few cheap shocks there's not much here beyond surface style. If you haven't seen The Ring series and Kaori and other movies of this type or if you don't mind another retread, then you will likely enjoy this. If nothing else it's a hell of a lot better than Fear.com even though it frequently seems to be the same movie.

Asia has produced some wonderful and genuinely scary horror movies but sadly Unborn But Forgotten isn't one. For a start what a silly title! It tries too hard to be scary by throwing cheap scare after cheap scare at the audience but bottom line is it is not in the least bit scary. The plot becomes difficult to follow, I pretty much gave up and by the end credits my eyelids were wanting to close. Poor.