Into the Mirror

Parts of this horror movie are absolutely brilliant. The opening scene, with the doomed girl standing in front of a mirror, is a real stunner! And for the first half hour things move along quite effectively. We get some amazing visuals, mostly concerning mirrors, and good suspense too. Then, after that half hour mark, we get some truly boring dialog scenes and a lot of quarreling between our hero (who, according to me, seems to be a nice guy but a complete bore!) and an ex-colleague of his (he used to be a police but resigned after a shooting accident). Things pick up later in the movie, but the ending is a little bit of a let-down, because the build-up had so far been (mostly) very effective. But it is a nice idea for a horror story and well directed! Give it a try and I think you'll like it! :-)

Wu Young-min, a former policeman who inadvertently brought about the death of his partner during a face off with a criminal,has quit the police force and now heads up security at Dreamapia Department Store as an employee of the security company SecuZone.Having been caught up in the situation at the department store Wu comes across his former rival and co-worker Ha Hyun-su,who now heads the investigation into the recent murders linked with mirrors.A mysterious woman Lee Ji-hyun is found lingering about the crime scenes.Without wishing it,Wu is drawn into the creepy mystery surrounding the murders."Into the Mirror" is a creepy South Korean horror with some striking visuals.There is very little gore,fortunately the aura of distinctive mood is clearly visible.The acting is great and the climax totally creeped me out.All in all if you are a fan of recent slew of Asian horror give this one a look.8 out of 10.

INTO THE MIRROR is an intriguing mix of police procedural and supernatural horror, an unwieldy but effective combination that proved successful enough for Hollywood to attempt a remake (the Kiefer Sutherland-starrer MIRRORS, which upped the gore but lost something in translation in the process). The film's setting is a once-deserted shopping mall, always a choice location for the movies and one that doesn't disappoint here; in places it drips with an eerie, provocative atmosphere.

What I liked most about this movie was the mixing of genres. On one hand there's a serial killer aspect to the murders, which are inventive without being gruesome. Then there's the supernatural touch, which is handled subtly and effectively, particularly in that great twist ending. Finally, there's the police procedural side which dominates most of the running time, and that's interesting too because the cops are humanised.

Ji-tae Yu's former detective Woo, now working as chief of security at the mall, is by far the most interesting of the characters. Although he's saddled with one of those all-too-familiar back stories involving him making a fatal error, the script works well to make him sympathetic and an intriguingly balanced lead. Myung-min Kim's officious detective is well placed as Woo's antagonist and the story that develops is never less than enthralling. A good little movie, this one.

OK, I was a bit evil myself to put a comment titled like that, and the film was a good one. The problem with it is that is not really scary. It's a nice thriller and , as some other viewers have noticed, has a nice pace in the first half, but then gets sluggish. The lead actor doesn't show a lot of emotion in his acting and that also sets the feeling of the movie to a lower level. The ending is really unrealistic to the extreme (for a ghost movie, that is :) )

But the idea is nice. Another world may lie beyond a mirror and things that happened there might not mimic exactly what s happening here. Parts of people might get trapped in mirrors or exact revenge coming from there. Anything else, though, is pretty confusing. I am not Asian so a lot of the names in the movie sounded alike. Add to this that the dead girl had a twin sister and there were mirrors everywhere and you can understand why I felt confused.

As Asian horror movies go, I would rather see a cliché "bad hair wet ghost with spooky eyes" than this kind of thriller, but this film definitely has some good and original parts in it.

South Korean horror/thriller that was the basis for Kiefer Sutherland's 2008 movie Mirrors. I can see how they split the plot and spread it over Mirrors and its sequel, Mirrors 2. This version is slower than the remake, and has very little blood and gore. What it does have is a heightened eeriness throughout. We get reflections out of sync with their physical counterparts, shadowy figures half-glimpsed in backgrounds, and a sense of things being just slightly 'off'. Whilst the US Mirrors is unashamedly a horror film, this is more of a crime thriller/police procedural, with some supernatural elements. The camerawork is great (not least for how they manage to keep the crew from being caught in the reflections!). It's well directed and the cast are good. And it has a nice score. Although (unusually for me) I actually prefer the US remake, this is definitely worth a watch. 7/10.