R-Point

Six months prior to the beginning of the film, a group of recon soldiers are sent to "R-Point", a strategically significant island south of Saigon. Radio contact is lost, and they're presumed dead, until six months later ("present day" in the film's sense) radio transmissions are received claiming that the soldiers are alive and in grave danger. A squad of 9 soldiers, led by hardened veteran Lt. Choi, are dispatched to find them and bring them home.

What follows isn't an action-heavy horror movie, but a more tense, atmospheric exploration of the lines between the supernatural and reality. Surrounded by miles of jungle and rumours of ghosts, the soldiers begin to crack under the pressures of their situation and begin to turn on one another. It's difficult to describe what they encounter without making it sound trite or clichéd (R-Point is neither), but the physical pressures of the jungle combined with the psychological pressures of the legends of R-Point are captured brilliantly both by the camera-work and the actors portraying their private descents into madness.

Atmospheric and full of suspense, R-Point is tense, very creepy, and definitely worth watching. It never goes over the top and remains tight and controlled. Horror movies and war movies cross over well, it seems. After is, war is hell, and in R-Point, each soldier certainly goes through that.

On 07 January 2007, the South Korean base in Nah-Trang, Vietnam, receives a radio transmission from a missing platoon presumed dead. The high-command assigns the veteran and decorated Lieutenant Choi Tae-in (Woo-seong Kam) to lead a squad with eight other soldiers and rescue the missing soldiers from the R-Point. When they arrive in the location, they have a shooting and defeat a Vietnamese woman with a machine gun in a trench. Later, they find a tombstone telling that one hundred years ago, Chinese killed Vietnamese, dropped them in a lake and built a temple over the place, being a sacred location to the Vietnamese. While chasing the missing soldiers, weird things happen with the rescue team.

"R-Point" is an original, scary and ambiguous journey to hell of the innermost fear of a group of soldiers. This horror movie explores the supernatural, but its ambiguity allows the logical interpretation that nothing happened but the madness process of a group of stressed soldiers, alone in a creepy and sacred location, affected by the dark atmosphere of the spot and killing each other. An Asian horror movie is my favorite genre due to this type of intelligent screenplay that leaves the interpretation open to the viewers. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Fantasmas da Guerra" ("Ghosts of War")

There's a lot of promise in R-Point, but very little fulfillment of any of it. I suppose the reason we don't see too many meldings of the war and supernatural horror genres is that the reality of war is infinitely more horrific than any "boo! a ghost!" plot line any screenwriter could cook up. That doesn't mean it's impossible to make a good war/horror movie. Still, what examples I've seen in the past -- The Bunker, The Keep, Below -- have been sad disappointments, relying on the genre's clichés rather than any narrative depth to evoke horror.

R-Point wants to explore such depth, putting a platoon of men in a situation where they question their very sanity. But ultimately, it falls back on horror movie clichés -- yes, there's even a black-haired ghost woman. Still, there are several good scenes, and enough hints at what a good movie this could have been, that it's worth watching at least once for hardcore Asian-horror fans. It's the kind of movie where you sit around after it was over and talk about how awesome it would have been if only they'd done X or Y.

The first half of the movie is reasonably strong. A Korean platoon in Vietnam that vanished six months before our story starts, in a remote area designated R-Point, has suddenly started radioing in to HQ. Another platoon is whipped together to find them. Trekking out to the eerie location, they set up base camp in an abandoned mansion and begin reconning the area. Promptly weirdness starts occurring. In the best scene, one soldier gets separated from his search party, only to find them crossing a field...but is it them? In another, a late night visit from a passing American platoon divulges some of R-Point's backstory, and sets up a creepy reveal later in the film.

Up to this point, atmosphere is very disturbing and there is a lot of tension. Unfortunately it begins to weaken when little to no explanation is ever satisfactorily given for the weird goings-on. I forget where I read it, but someone once said that any genre movie can be forgiven its worst failings as long as it follows the "Awesome!" rule -- that it has at least one knockout scene that makes you say, "Okay, _that_ was awesome!" R-Point has no such scene.

The soldiers begin fighting amongst one another, but you don't really know them that well, so it's hard to understand why. Most of them are one-dimensional soldier stereotypes (the scared rookie, the guy who can't wait to get home to take his kid to the zoo so we know he's gonna die early, the gruff sarge whom many of the grunts trust more than the green lieutenant), so we don't feel any sense of personal stake in their fate. Worse still is the director's choice to throw in the occasional green-tinted ghost POV shot. It begins early in the movie and completely wrecks the mood every time, because it's such an obvious cheap horror movie device. What are we supposed to think? "Ooooo, scarrrrrry, they're being watched from behind a tree by a ghost!" Uhh, sorry, doesn't work. For one thing, if I were a ghost...why would I hide behind a tree?

Ultimately, the movie just doesn't pay off. It's a shame, because there are hints that with a few more rewrites, this could have been a really amazing combination of the real-life horror of Platoon or Apocalypse Now, and the "who can you trust?" themes of Body Snatchers or John Carpenter's The Thing. Watch it for yourself, and I bet you come up with several better ways the story could have played out.

This is being sold as a Korean version of Apocalypse Now. Its not. Other than the plot device of investigating mysterious radio signals there is no similarities at all. Do not believe the hype.

The plot concerns a group of soldiers sent to R-Point to investigate a group radio signals from a group of supposedly dead men. Once they cross the line into the area all sorts of strange things begin to happen and they slowly begin to dwindle in number. Yes, you've probably seen it before in other films, you know the drill a group of men cut off in a strange place where they are hunted by a seemingly supernatural force. Recent films such as the Bunker, or Deathwatch cover similar territory to varying degrees of success.

For most of the running time R-Point works, as a good but not great thriller. There is a slowly building sense of dread as it goes on that thankfully never becomes overwhelming. It's not perfect as most of the men blend together and you really have no idea who is who. The real problem is that around an hour or so in the film starts to not make sense. Events become disjointed and there are some turns that seems out of left field. Granted this is a film that asks you to pay attention as little things early on show up later or give clues to whats going on, so if you look away you may feel lost. I did look away and did feel lost.

I also have reservations about the reasons for events toward the end, they don't seem natural, I suspect this is due to the director attempting to add more weight to the story than a straight horror film could carry. I think the attempts at allegory weaken the film and prevent it from being either a horror film or allegory.

Still I do recommend the film for those people who want to see something creepy but not too scary, and who don't mind it doesn't completely work to the end.

I enjoyed this movie. Confusion and uncertainty exist in war, so I felt it gave a taste to the viewer of what the troops were going through. If anything, it added to the nightmarish quality. Strange place, scared sh*tless, etc.

Very creepy, lots of tension, great location. I agree with earlier posts, it was reminiscent of The Shining (evil location induces madness and murder).

It won't appeal to everyone (as we all have different tastes) but I find this type of thoughtful horror far more terrifying and disturbing than the usual 'obvious' Hollywood horror - mainly because it invites you to use your imagination (a scary unlimited place!) instead of spelling it all out and tying up the loose ends.