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Film: Woochi – The Demon Slayer
Year of production: 2009
UK Release date: 25th April 2011
Distributor: Cine Asia
Certificate: 15
Running time: 115 mins
Director: Choi Dong-hun
Starring: Gang Dong-won, Kim Yun-seok, Lim Su-jeong, Yum Jung-ah, Yu Hae-jin
Genre: Action/Adventure/Comedy/Fantasy
Format: DVD & Blu-ray
Country of Production: South Korea
Language: Korean
South Korean fantasy comedy Woochi – The Demon Slayer was a box office sensation when it was first released in its home country at the end of 2009 - attracting the highest opening-day attendance for any film that year. Now Woochi fights its way onto UK home video courtesy of Cine Asia, but will the film hold the same appeal?
Loosely derived from a Korean folk tale, the film centres on undisciplined wizard-in-training Jeon Woochi (Gang Dong-won) and his exploits. Along with his trusty man-dog sidekick Chorangyi (Yu Hae-jin), the pair cause mischief during the 16th century Chosun Dynasty, much to the annoyance of Woochi's master (Baek Yun-shik), who is mindful of the evil that exists - chiefly, the goblins accidentally unleashed by three foolish Taoist Gods.
Adopting human form, said Taoist Gods now associate themselves with corrupt king Hwadam (Kim Yun-seok) who is searching for two halves of a magical pipe that will grant him ultimate power. Hwadam murders Woochi's master in the name of searching for the second half, although it is Woochi who is the one who’s punished, imprisoned in a scroll for 500 years.
Half a millennium passes and the three Taoists are forced to release Woochi and his helper, Chorangyi, from their scroll prison in order to combat the goblins that are now running amok in 21st century Korea. But when it is discovered that Woochi has the second half of the mysterious pipe, Hwadam inevitably shows up...
It has to be said that, while there is plenty of fun to be had, there is something preventing Woochi from being a sure-fire international hit. Much of the narrative's fantasy logic is based on culturally specific mythology, which will likely pass by foreign audiences with little resonance. Things are made worse by the fact that there are moments of Woochi that, to put it bluntly, are confusing as hell, regardless of cultural barriers – and they really shouldn’t be.
Bad guy wants a magical object that will make him powerful. Good guy has said object and prevents the bad guy from having it. What's not to get? The problem is that writer/director Choi Dong-hun spends very little time establishing the rules and limitations of his fantastical universe. If magic and wizards are common place, why is Woochi – an apprentice – so important in the great scheme of things? Does Chorangyi have the ability to assume human form on his own to disguise the fact that he is really a dog, or is that a courtesy granted by Woochi's powers? One scene sees Chorangyi turn into a horse for Woochi to ride - did Woochi do that? How important are Woochi's talismans (pre-made magic spells written on small pieces of paper) if he is still able to use magic without them, provided that his soul is sufficiently “empty”? Said talismans are stolen at one point - is that a big deal? Where has Hwadam been for the intervening 500 years? Is he immortal? How much power do the three Taoist Gods have, considering that they need the help of an apprentice wizard to defeat the goblins? Why are the goblins there anyway and how powerful are they? What does this have to do with the pipe? Is this story about Woochi defeating the goblins, or about Woochi stopping Hwadam from getting the pipe?
Things are complicated further with the inclusion of subplots whose impact on the overall story is difficult to discern. A link is made between a 16th century widow and a 21st century make-up artist for reasons beyond simply giving Woochi a love interest, but its overall bearing on the story is barely explained - are they ancestors? A kiss from Hwadam gives make-up artist Seo In-kyung (Lim Su-Jeong) temporary superhuman power. Why? It’s alluded to that she may be a godlike entity, but it never really gets explored. Another unrealised subplot involves Woochi looking for a special magical knife, under the pretence that it will make him more powerful, and has the ability to turn Chorangyi into a real human. Such an artefact seems to become very important by the film's end, but for reasons that aren't wholly explained. One gets the feeling that all the answers are there in Woochi, but are hidden away with the assistance of some confusing storytelling. What is initially interpreted as dream is in fact reality and vice versa, and some scenes act as the prelude to scenes that have already played out (particularly during the first half), leading to further bewilderment.
However, regardless of how confusing the storytelling is, it serves as a valid pretext for a variety of far-fetched action set-pieces, which, for the most part, work wonderfully. For a production with an estimated and relatively meagre budget of around $12 million, Woochi offers plenty of bang for your buck. Fight sequences have ample opportunity for gravity defying mayhem and deliver in abundance. Due to the magical nature of the characters involved, anything goes, and writer/director Choi Dong-hun revels in the possibilities of having his protagonist multiply into dozens of Woochis for a particularly memorable brawl in a city backstreet. The sparingly used CGI is well integrated with the live-action stuff, although the goblins – when seen in their true form – can look a little ropey. Also, the execution of certain action sequences lack geography, rendering the results a flurry of noise and movement with little presence and, ultimately, meaning.
Performances on the whole are rather good for a film of this style; sufficiently fun and laid-back, but not too hammy or overcooked. The comedic interchanges between Woochi and the bumbling Taoists are quite pleasing, as is the insecurity of Chorangyi, who feels frequently put-upon due to his master's inadequacies. Kim Yun-seok makes for a decent and strangely likeable villain whilst Lim Su-jeong, if a little underused, is a solid love interest.
Woochi's ability to make what should be a straightforward, fantasy-soaked romp into a baffling and illogical cinematic excursion is somewhat of a detriment to the overall experience. However, it also proves to be one of the wilder rides you'll likely encounter on DVD this year. Incoherence aside, Woochi is still a good – though not quite great – way to spend an afternoon. Worth a look. MP
Film: I’m A Cyborg
Release date: 26th May 2008
Certificate: 15
Running time: 105 mins
Director: Park Chan-wook
Starring: Lim Su-jeong, Rain, Choi Hie-jin, Kim Byeong-ok, Lee Yong-nyeo
Genre: Comedy/Drama/Romance
Studio: Tartan
Format: DVD
Country: South Korea
I’m A Cyborg is a film by Park Chan-wook that takes a more light-hearted approach to his usual style of twisted storytelling. Fans of his successful vengeance trilogy will be surprised at the U-turn but won’t necessarily be disappointed by the cute escapades of two teenage mental patients.
While working in a radio production factory, Cha Young-goon (Lim Su-jeong) hears a voice instruct her to harm herself, and inevitably she is shocked trying to plug herself into the mains. To show that she is fully recharged, the toes of her right foot light up in different colours, mimicking the bar gauges on mobile phones.
All the while Young-goon’s Mother is narrating. He is telling the doctor about how her daughter acts – that she speaks like an old person because her granny brought her up, who herself has already been sectioned because she thinks she is a mouse and only eats radishes.
After the incident at the factory, Young-goon is immediately hospitalised, and as she is lying motionless in her bed, another patient is telling her about the others on the ward. She wheels Young-goon’s bed around the hospital and shows her ‘the hiccup clock’, where, supposedly, a patient who couldn’t stop hiccupping hid in the clock and withered away. They continue to the recreation room where the male lead, Il-sun (Rain) is playing table tennis in a colourful rabbit mask. Young-goon’s escort tells her a tall tale about Il-sun; that he was so ashamed in prison about what he had done that he burned his handsome face with cigarettes and sewed up his own anus (to which the audience is shown a humorous clip of Il-sun picking a wedgie before serving the next ball).
Young-goon refuses to speak to her peers or nursing staff, instead befriending the vending machine to which she speaks to late at night. Meanwhile, Il-sun is being accused of stealing all sorts of preposterous things from his colleagues, from hunger to table tennis skills. He performs makeshift rituals where he covers the victim’s face in paint then wraps a piece of paper around them. He holds his palm open upon their shoulder and says “transfer,” and then the victim slaps his palm to transfer the desired stolen trait.
This is when the film starts to pick up. Young-goon has been following and watching Il-sun’s shenanigans, and approaches him to ask if he could “steal her sympathy” so that she may fulfil her cyborg duties without her human emotions. Il-sun refuses at first, stealing her Granny’s dentures instead, but when he does finally take the “sympathy,” cyborg Young-goon blossoms, wreaking havoc and carnage around the hospital…
Lim Su-jeong is very likable as the loopy Young-goon. She has a youthful face and portrays a very endearing, child-like character.
Rain proves to be a man of many faces. He is able to take Il-sun from the aloof, seemingly ‘normal’ Ping-Pong enthusiast through all the stolen traits of the other characters with ease and charm, making the film hilarious, and allowing us to forgive the apparent lack of substantial plot.
Another notable character is a man who is “so humble he can only walk backwards,” and is a master of redundant statements, at one point, as he is trying to console a fellow patient’s recent defeat at table tennis, he delivers a very daft consoling line about how “Ping-Pong is about giving and receiving,” and “why must we only give after we’ve received?” The other patient is clearly not impressed.
Dynamics like that between the characters are very entertaining, and obviously the essence of the film is how the patients interact with each other, rather than a straight storyline, which often leaves characters static and lacklustre, while the director trundles through an over-elaborate narrative.
There are scenes that may have been better off not being included, like ones that involve special effects that turn the narrative overly surreal, and into detached dream sequences. Although, when Young-goon believes she is transforming parts of her body into automatic weapons, there is a delightful massacre scene halfway through the film that will indulge long-time Park fans, and still keep the spunky, innocent feel of the rest of the film.
The cinematography is, as ever with Park, spectacular, with the scenes being supported by intense pastel colours, giving the impression of the character’s performing straight out of a children’s book, with lots of repetition of solid, geometric shapes. The eating hall, in particular, is very aesthetic, and also the solitary confinement room, which is a padded cell in a brilliant bright green.
For all the bright and sugary props that keep the audience entertained, an overall storyline is tricky to find – it’s clearly a romance story between two disturbed individuals that will always have problems by themselves in society, but there is no solid, expectant conclusion to tie all the ends together.
As long as you’re not expecting the gratuitous violence of the vengeance trilogy and allow I’m A Cyborg to breathe on its own, it’ll be easier to appreciate as a modern, dark fairytale. The imagery is slick and the characters are attractive and likeable, but the overall storyline seems to teeter out by the credits. You won’t get a satisfying conclusion, but you will laugh hard and easily. AW
Film: A Tale Of Two Sisters
Release date: 22nd November 2004
Certificate: 15
Running time: 115 mins
Director: Kim Ji-woon
Starring: Kim Kap-su, Yum Jung-ah, Lim Su-jeong, Moon Geun-young, Lee Seung-bi
Genre: Drama/Horror/Mystery/Thriller
Studio: Tartan
Format: DVD
Country: South Korea
Having been adapted from a Korean folk story entitled Janghwa Hongreyon jeon, A Tale Of Two Sisters amalgamates the subtle, sinister atmosphere of an urban myth with a stylized, visual beauty integrated by director Kim Ji-woon.
The film begins with a young girl being questioned by a psychiatrist in an eerily indistinct scene set inside a bleak, white hospital. What follows, rather unsurprisingly, is a story centred upon two sisters, Su-Mi and her timid younger sibling Su-Yeon. The girls are getting ready to move into a beautiful, yet utterly secluded house, in the serene countryside, with their father, Mu-Hyun, and a seemingly iniquitous stepmother, Eun-Joo. The reason for this change of locale is hinted at being a recovery from some unspecified disturbance.
The sisters struggle to settle in their new surroundings, due to their relationship with their belligerent stepmother. Despite the tension between the three females being overt, with Su-Mi openly showing her hostility toward Eun-Joo, Mu-Hyun seems unreservedly desensitized to the issue, and reacts only by opting for calm within the family. Disturbing occurrences soon occur within the house, with a tormented Su-Mi struggling with the visions of peculiar nightmares whilst trying to calm her younger sisters’ deteriorating mental state, due to a combination of an ostensibly terrifying wooden closet and the wicked actions of Eun-Joo…
Like many films released during the boom years of East-Asian horror cinema, A Tale Of Two Sisters is somewhat attentive towards the idea of disunity and dysfunction within the family unit. Su-Mi’s fractured and hostile relationship towards her stepmother, as well as Mu-Hyun’s seeming lack of interest and concern, are indicative of a broken family. This apprehension invoked by the cracked relationships between the characters is an excellent aspect of the film, especially when coupled with the eerie, hazy tension within the house.
One the film’s most important and impressive facets is the sheer ambiguity which looms over the story. From the opening scene within the hospital to the rationale behind the resentment between Su-Mi and Eun-Joo, as well as the underlying mental disturbances of the characters, director Kim Ji-woon refuses to spoon feed the audience, and keeps us firmly in the dark and guessing throughout the film. The ambiguous nature of the story is aptly juxtaposed with the mental states of the characters, and in particular, Su-Mi.
The ambiguity throughout the film may slightly deter some viewers, as the story is sometimes difficult to follow due to a certain lack of exposition. However, this is a key component of the film, and is sine qua non in adding a certain amount of vagueness and tension to the story, which, at times, is built up to frightening proportions. This is often helped by the pacing of the film, which can be very slow. When the girls first move into their new home at the start of the film, the pacing of the film is almost dream-like, setting up a wonderfully tense atmosphere highly reminiscent of a David Lynch film. Although it speeds up at the film’s denouement, involving several twists and turns, the best instances within the story are when the pacing is slow, and scenes are often cut together in an almost meticulous fashion.
The horror in A Tale Of Two Sisters is dictated by the underlying psychological aspects which run through the film. The emotional distress manifests through bizarre events which can be very creepy. Particularly eerie set pieces involve a gruesome Su-Mi nightmare laden with a subtext of menstruation, and a truly peculiar scene in which Mu-Hyun’s guests experience an outlandish dinner scenario. As the story progresses, the audience is often persuaded to question the validity and pragmatism of certain scenes, and, as the mental states of the characters become more mysterious, things are increasingly not what they seem.
Aesthetically, the film is beautiful. The visuals combine a surreal reverie with a dark and gothic aspect which makes for an excellent grouping. The opening scene, for example, is a visual delight. The shady and sterilised hospital room merges with an atmosphere of tension and ambiguity to produce a perfect starting block. Alongside the dark shadows which encompass the film are a litany of vivid and dazzling colours which bring out the films dream-like quality.
The overriding feeling whilst watching the film is of pure anxiety. As the film draws to a end, twists become apparent, which really do piece together the story. One criticism may be that the film is somewhat over-complicated, with some aspects of the film being superfluous. On occasions, it can be confusing, whilst at others, it can be like a Lucian Freud painting; both beautiful and gruesome, sometimes hard to watch, yet you cannot keep your eyes off it.
In what has been customary for successful East-Asian horror cinema of recent years, the film was given a Hollywood remake, The Uninvited (2009). However, this original is truly superior. An aesthetically beautiful, yet, at times, utterly disturbing film that delivers a deliciously disconcerting atmosphere throughout. CJG
