Dead Friend

Tartan's new release of Ryeong, A.k.a. The Ghost is not one of their better releases. In fact, I found The Ghost to be one of the worst Asian ghost stories I've seen in awhile. This is not to say that Ghost is necessarily a bad film, it just doesn't offer anything new to jaded horror viewers, and seems like a hodge-podge of several prior successful Asian horror films, Chiefly, The Ring, Ju-On, Shutter, and Dark Water.

The Ghost tells the story of Ji-Won, a young student who is afflicted with amnesia. She is completely unaware of her prior life, including an incident which sets up the haunting of Ji-Won by a long-haired ghost girl. As her friends start to die off, she decides to investigate the event that led to the deaths of her friends. Peeling back the layers of her subconscious, she slowly unravels clues to her past, which inevitably lead to a giant plot-twist, which I saw coming at about 20 minutes into the film.

If it sounds like something you've seen before, that's because it is. The Ghost adds nothing new to the K-Horror genre and heavily borrows (Or steals) from past K and J-Horror successes. In fact, even some of the score was lifted from The Shutter (not to mention the plot)! The sad thing is that the film isn't all that bad. The Ghost is somewhat creepy, there are some decent scares, the pacing is good, and the story is decent. But to those of us familiar with Asia Horror, it's just more of the same. If The Ghost had been made before such films as The Ring or Dark Water, it would probably be regarded as a great entry into the K-Horror genre. Alas, it was made after, and offers nothing new, but retreads of familiar territory.

If your a fan of K-Horror and are looking for something to pass time until the next great Horror flick comes out, or if you like to collect K-Horror than check it out. If your the occasional Asian horror flick viewer, save your time. You've seen it all before.

My Rating 4.5 out of 10. The Ghost delivers nothing that I hadn't seen before. It's predictable, and forgettable.

A college student suffering from amnesia tries to figure out how she lost her memory, and what it is she can't remember. She tries in vain to get help from her friends, even though they seem to know something. The closer she gets to the truth, the more it appears that her past could be more devastating than she could ever imagine.

THE GHOST (aka: DEAD FRIEND) is a ghoulish, supernatural mystery from South Korea. Although it does venture into Japanese horror territory -vengeful, long, black-haired specter- there's enough originality and good storytelling to outweigh any overly familiar images. The final revelation is definitely satisfying...

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.

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.

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