Princess Aurora

An exhilarating, smartly made revenge thriller that has a sublime, increasingly heart-wrenching performance from Uhm Jung-Hwa as the grieving mother turned ruthless angel of death. Bang Eun-Jin's masterful Princess Aurora provides stylish, and frequently bloody entertainment. This adult, exceptionally fine genre film captivates due to the compelling performances, and an unusually gripping plot. It is rather uncommon for a relentlessly dark and brutal thriller to be so strongly replete with such an excess of pathos. This dazzling, profoundly immersive Korean thrill-fest remains an outstandingly cinematic treat, with a bravura, white-knuckled climax that I found utterly devastating.

I have seen the 2005 South Korean movie "Orora Gongju" (aka "Princess Aurora") once before, though I have to admit that I have entirely forgotten about the movie's storyline. And thus, as I had the opportunity to watch it again here in 2023, of course I did so.

And having just sat through 106 minutes of this, I realize now that there was a reason for why I had forgotten about this movie, because it just wasn't a particularly good movie. The storyline in "Orora Gongju", as written by Pang Eun-Jin and Min-Hui Seo, started out quite good and the movie was rather enjoyable, right up to about halfway through, then the narrative went crashing downhill fast and the movie lost all momentum and became quite an insufferable drag to sit through.

The acting performances in "Orora Gongju" were good, despite the fact that the actors and actresses didn't have a fully wholesome script to work with.

Visually then "Orora Gongju" was not overly impressive. There were some watchable violence scenes to spruce up the ordeal, but that was about it.

Ultimately, then director Pang Eun-Jin didn't manage to bedazzle me with this 2005 movie. And having revisited it now, and gotten its narrative refreshed, I can honestly say that I am not returning to watch the movie again. Nor is it a movie that I will recommend for fans of the South Korean cinema to rush out and get to watch, if you haven't already seen it.

My rating of "Orora Gongju" lands on a very generous four out of ten stars.

So I was out one day at my local video store and I rented 10 Asian films as I'm quite a fan of Asian cinema. I got round to watching this and have to say I had quite a good time with this and was quite impressed.

The film does sort of play along with you and doesn't have any answers for the first hour or so. All you pretty much know is that you have your leading heroine (or anti heroine to some) Jung Sun (Jeong-hwa Eom) who looks perfectly innocent and cute, works as a car salesperson and starts going on a killing spree for reasons ambiguous to the audience to begin with. And she keeps playing a cassete tape that has a kid singing a song.

Obviously people kill for a reason - whether they have a tormented psychological issue, or are just plain psycho or may be killing thinking they are doing society good by killing people deemed a nuisance or unnecessary to live (think Taxi Driver style). So I knew there was something more to this character, and luckily the film delivers on that aspect and the reasons for each murder she does is explained at the end as you have no idea why she has targeted some of her victims.

Towards the end, it does sort of get a bit over the top but I didn't mind it and made me sympathise a lot more with the character. The policemen working on capturing her are stupid only because of the fact that the main cop also has a role to play in all that is happening.

I won't say what her motivations are for killing her victims - it makes it more surprising and involving when you find out for yourself. Perhaps you could say the end is slightly cliché but I think it was well deserved in terms of its outcome.

The performances are pretty good, especially from Jeong-hwa Eom who is able to pull the film on her shoulders and combines beauty with deadly vengeance all in one while also displaying human emotions in terms of her past. While the killings can get repetitive as you still don't really know where some of it is going, it pays off at the end, though some things were a bit hazy in terms of how she just happened to have luck in finding some of her victims after everything that happened.

What the film also sends in terms of its message is how we can sometimes overlook simple acts of kindness which can actually prevent major problems or accidents from happening. Our own selfish desires or self interest often results in harm to others which is apparent in any society whether it be Korean or in any other part of the world.

So yeah, I would recommend this film as it was pretty solid and I found myself enjoying it while also packing an emotional depth in its form.

A pretty good South Korean thriller, although not quite up there with the likes of THE CHASER or MEMORIES OF MURDER. PRINCESS AURORA sees the inimitable Eom Jeong-hwa as a wronged mother who sets out on a seemingly random massacre of people who offend her, and of course the police are hot on her trail.

I find these Korean police procedural films to be typically gripping and PRINCESS AURORA is no exception. I loved the mystery aspect of the storyline, which gradually unfolds towards crystal clarity at the climax, even though I did easily guess the twist ending this time around. The film is also interspersed with those stark, gruesome set-pieces that the Koreans portray so well.

The acting is excellent and complements the script well, and the only reason I haven't given this a higher rating is because the subject matter is so dark. It's ultimately a very sad and depressing movie, but that doesn't stop it from being decent; it's just not one of those films that screams entertainment value at you.

But not the best that has been produced in that land. If your looking for the revenge master, look no further than "Park Chan-Wook" (or you can put the Park at the end, like it's done in Korea) and you'll get the best!

Having said that, the story presented here is not bad. Not bad at all and the acting is quite good also. But the pacing, the rhythm and the overall flair of this movie, never quite feels right. The script could've used a few rewrites and I'm pretty sure, there could've been a few better fleshed out characters. But this still is very emotional and you might not like what you see, especially concerning the ending (and yes the last sentence is intended to be understood in more than one way!)!