Anyone who knows me will tell you that I love Korean cinema. It’s part of why I started this blog, so I could talk about Korean movies. I figured blogging would give me the excuse to see more Korean films. For the life of me I am so sad that I started with this one. I don’t even know where to begin.
Plot: Yeah, good luck with this one. I don’t need a linear narrative. Actually I prefer a challenging point of view. One of my favorite movies is Momento and that’s about as nonlinear as it gets. But in Voices, there are so many flashbacks, flash forwards and I think even a few flash sideways, if that’s even cinematically possible. Imagine trying to make sense of a dream within a flashback within a hallucination. It’s like decoding The Sound and the Fury! It can be done, but who wants to work that had at a movie...other than a Christopher Nolan film, and they are always worth it.
This film seems deliberately to bask in its convolution. Again, this could be used as a tool to create different effects. Here, unfortunately, it merely creates confusion and ultimately boredom. Which is a real pity. I wonder if the word ‘clarity’ translates into Korean?
This film seems deliberately to bask in its convolution. Again, this could be used as a tool to create different effects. Here, unfortunately, it merely creates confusion and ultimately boredom. Which is a real pity. I wonder if the word ‘clarity’ translates into Korean?
The acting is good but pointless. The story is simple but needlessly muddled. The cinematography is atmospheric yet pedestrian. We’ve seen it all before. The direction is competent, yet uninspired. The thrills are aplenty, yet all the same jump-cut momentary shocks. The gore and violence seem also pedestrian. This film breaks no new ground, which isn’t necessary for a film to be good. But it’s more of a grab bag of tricks than a tension building genre piece crafted by a sure hand.
For foreign films I always try to remember that it was produced by another culture and that there might be cultural aspects that I’m missing which might contribute to a more informed opinion. But I’m pretty well versed in Korean culture and I’ve seen a lot of Korean films and genre horror pictures and while I was rooting for this film to hook me…it never delivers. Even the big reveal at the end comes as no surprise and is far from the kind of originality I have come to expect from Korean cinema. I think the main problem with the narrative is that there’s not a single voice telling this story. The Point of View is all over the place.
For foreign films I always try to remember that it was produced by another culture and that there might be cultural aspects that I’m missing which might contribute to a more informed opinion. But I’m pretty well versed in Korean culture and I’ve seen a lot of Korean films and genre horror pictures and while I was rooting for this film to hook me…it never delivers. Even the big reveal at the end comes as no surprise and is far from the kind of originality I have come to expect from Korean cinema. I think the main problem with the narrative is that there’s not a single voice telling this story. The Point of View is all over the place.
Characters: Young girls. A family. Handsome brooding males. Aunts who fall to their deaths on their wedding days only to be hacked to death by their sisters while recovering it he hospital. Oh, and there’s a curse. I mean that literally. He’s in the movie.
Setting: Korean High School and Family Life. This movie is not a Whispering Corridors indictment of the cruelties of the Korean educational system, nor is it an exploration of how madness and paranoia affect a family dealing with a curse. It could have been, but for some reason it’s a movie about people falling to their deaths or getting stabbed. Or killing themselves. Yawn.
Imagery: Yes, there’s one good cinematic moment near the end when one of the bad guys thinks he’s killed everyone in the house and he sets fire to it. Very much an image of hell, but it’s wasted. The opening is geared to shock…a women stabbed in front of a TV screen and a little boy getting yelled at by her as she dies. Yawn.
Editing: Jump cuts a-go-go.
Soundtrack: Noticeably not an enhancement.
Setting: Korean High School and Family Life. This movie is not a Whispering Corridors indictment of the cruelties of the Korean educational system, nor is it an exploration of how madness and paranoia affect a family dealing with a curse. It could have been, but for some reason it’s a movie about people falling to their deaths or getting stabbed. Or killing themselves. Yawn.
Imagery: Yes, there’s one good cinematic moment near the end when one of the bad guys thinks he’s killed everyone in the house and he sets fire to it. Very much an image of hell, but it’s wasted. The opening is geared to shock…a women stabbed in front of a TV screen and a little boy getting yelled at by her as she dies. Yawn.
Editing: Jump cuts a-go-go.
Soundtrack: Noticeably not an enhancement.
Again, this could have been a nice genre piece had the director or screenwriter had focused on the story rather than the editing. It came from a comic book, so maybe they were trying to capture the style of a manhwa comic. Who knows? I do not recommend anyone to see this movie. And that makes me sad.
RSS Feed
