User Reviews

I watched this because I saw the American remake earlier in the day (Mirrors). Its nice to see that the remake isn't an exact mashing of the original film. Here an ex-cop goes to work for his uncle's department as a security guard. The store is reopening after a fire and everything is going fine until a series of deaths start up. The tone of the two films is different with the American version dark and brooding and this one more bright and open. The fact that the store is opening allows for things like security cameras that further add to the story. I don't know if I liked this version or didn't like this version since my feelings are so tied up with what I saw earlier in the day. It is certainly good, but its different enough that my getting lost on comparing the two films distracts from this one. I'll have to watch it again to know what I really feel.(I will say this I think the original is more internally consistent)

Despite being unsure what it is, Into the Mirror succeeds in spinning an entertaining yarn.

Ji-tae Yu is Woo Yeong-min, a former policeman who's been reduced to security guard for his uncle's company since a hostage incident 1 year prior resulted in the death of a man as a consequence of a mistake from Min. He opted to shoot the aggressor and missed, shooting his reflection by mistake. The occurrence left him completely traumatised and entirely miserable, and unable to look himself in the mirror.

However, when 2 employees of the company die in extremely mysterious circumstances, Min's former partner on the force, Heo Hyeon-su joins the investigation and strange goings on continue.

Part supernatural chiller, part cop drama, part psychological drama, part surreal mystery, Into the Mirror is very much an eclectic mix of different styles of movie. It without question succeeds in the basic discipline of any film, that of concertedly engaging the viewer's attention for the duration, and it does this thanks to a number of elements:

First of all the cinematography is spot on, and is extremely good at facilitating the supernatural psychology. Aided by a director who seems to know exactly what to show us, each scene is smartly captured, with many clever uses of mirrors. Many occasions will call for your attention on more than one thing, and the mystery of wondering what, if any, wrongness will occur is well realised.

Furthermore, the acting is surprisingly decent for an Asian movie. As ignorant as that may sound, I have viewed many Asian films and the acting is uniformly rather bland. Even though westerners do not understand the language, emotion et al can still come across on celluloid and Asian movies are often left wanting here. However, Into the Mirror is more than decent in this area for once, with good performances from a fair few players. It certainly adds to the experience when it's not just the story we watch for.

There lies another strength. As touched on earlier the movie is downright entertaining, and relies on a pretty strong script and effective narrative. This film is never boring, aided and abetted by a script which never has vacuous moments and empty sequences. Everything is there for a reason.

However, the big weakness is the overriding suspicion that the film really doesn't know what it is trying to be. With so many styles mixed together, it comes across as more of a salad bowl than melting pot. Weird goings-on akin to the spooky occurrences in movies like Ring seem a little out of joint in the company of a police drama and crime mystery.

However, if you are willing to forgive this lack of harmony, like I, then you can overlook it and accept the movie for what it is: An entertaining yarn with enough going for it to keep you watching.

One last flaw though is the ending. Obviously I am not going to give it away, but the problem with it is it seems far too ambitious, and not a tad confusing. I was left not so much baffled as to what was going on, but what it actually meant overall. This took the shine off perhaps a little, but it was still a fine picture overall and I would still recommend it.

An ex-cop becomes as a security guard to escape the haunting past where a mistake cost him his partner's life. Now he's working in a shopping complex owned by his uncle, but he gets caught up in a series of bizarre deaths that are occurring in the building. All of these deaths seem to be link somehow to mirrors, which cover most of the building. So now he becomes involved in the police investigation surrounding these unusual circumstances.

Another little unknown Asian flick, this time from South Korea, which really snuck up on me. But on that point it had me in two minds. Neither was it bad nor good. At times, I couldn't care less what was happening, but at least it didn't follow the same suit of most Asian films of last couple of years… well kinda. 'Into the Mirror' is a murder mystery that dabbles into the supernatural by involving the folklore about a world that lives through the mirror, where a part of our soul can cross over.

To quote the narration from the flick "Self-hatred triggered by a mental shock, can cause a personality to split and perceive two worlds inside and outside the mirror. The world is divided into two symmetrical worlds, both perceived by the person who is psychologically split. If you die outside the mirror you can still be living inside. And if you die inside the mirror you see no reflection".

Now that would've made for an involving watch, but sadly this idea isn't taken advantage of. Instead it's just too bad that they seemed to settle on the tired and we've seen it all before sub-plot about the cop trying to come to terms with his past and then getting involved in a investigation that doesn't really add up. This actual sub-plot does have merit to how it connects with this mirror theory, but it's not as interesting as delving into this belief of two worlds. The parts involving this premise are the most lively and neat moments within the film.

The opening half an hour has such a brood mood and nice supernatural touch, with characters dying strange deaths and the last 15 minutes has a decent climax that probably goes on for too long, but it ends in a cool fashion. Then there's the ending which makes you think well there goes by a good story right there, why did it take that long (?). The mid-section is where it gets really bogged down though, the drama element sees most of the daylight and by shaping the way for the lengthy investigation and feuding cops moments… and the creepy opening to it all has sort of lost its way through this stage. During the middle half it's not so hard to tell what's going to happen next and so the puzzle isn't really one at all, because you already guessed the key players. But you have to wait until the last 15 min for some new unexpected twists. There's a moral stacked into the story about conquering your fear, or it will eventually destroy if you don't face it and not to trust what you always see.

The film looks a treat, being rather stylish in detail and in its glossed up set pieces. They make good use of the film's environment (that being mostly set in a shopping complex) with beautifully presented ideas and visuals make you sit up. Helping that is a bone rattling score and the camera-work has its moments by putting you off balance with its fluid angles and shots. The performances are incredibly down played and mostly giving lifeless expressions, but that works out within this film's dour context, but the main lead was probably a bit too wooden.

'Into the Mirror' is a fair and ambitious horror-mystery flick, even if it's a muddle of ideas executed in a patchy manner. You just can't stop thinking what could have been if they concentrated more on the supernatural side of things.

I'm not totally agreed to categorize Into the Mirror as a pure horror movie. In my opinion, it is more of a thriller movie, with horror elements within it. It does have a 'ghostly' appearance and 'supernatural' effect like 'those 'deviating' images in the mirror. It is slow-paced movie, with investigations involving cops with hundreds of dialogue lines, more of a drama. And the eerie tension is noticeably below average, only at some points where homicide occurred, and it was not much, I notice there were only four deaths in this movie, including death of the antagonist near the final scene. That's why I prefer to call this movie as a thriller, not a pure horror movie.

The idea for the movie was original, it was quite good. Instead of focusing storyline on haunted house, hotel, etc, the director decided to take different approach into making a horror movie (though I think he did not make a quite impression of a horror one). Into the Mirror tells the story of a series of mysterious deaths occurred in a supermarket, all which involving mirrors. Finally it was revealed that all victims were murdered by their own mirror images. And there was a clumsy cop trying to investigate the murders as he was still traumatized for carelessly causing the death of his own partner while held as hostage by a group of crooks. The investigation became more complicated as it unwrapped some peculiar facts like the concept of 'another world behind the mirrors' (well this one is more of a fantasy, world behind mirrors, eh?), 'a ghost seek for revenge', and 'twin sisters'. The plot was then rather predictable: the task of the cop was to help the 'undead' looking for the murderer.

The opening scene itself was excellent. Scene of an employer trapped inside the supermarket after it was closed looking for exit, and then she was killed when standing in front of a mirror. A decent introduction to the movie's storyline.

However, despite the somewhat good ending (i.e. the aforementioned revenge was successful), the ending was rather vague. Unlike the self-explanatory opening scene, it is quite possible that the ending left you many unsolved and confusing questions. It was told that the protagonist had actually died in the real world, and now he lived in the mirror world. Little bit confusing, right? Ah yes, maybe the director did not want to leave a 'pure' good ending, instead leaving you with questions, or else, forced you to watch the movie over and over again to understand the ending.

Generally, while not the best movie ever made, Into The Mirror is still worth a try (or rent, if you are reluctant to buy). As a horror movie, it still lacked requirements to be a good one. But the unique story has its own strong point. Maybe it's so strong that it interested Hollywood to remake their own version of this movie (of course with more terrors and gory scenes, Hollywood-style (Mirrors starring Kiefer Sutherland anyone?). Yeah, another Asian flick to be remade by Hollywood!). If you like horror movies with non-stop terror, do not watch this. You will be boring by its slow-paced story and hellishly long dialogue lines. But if you are willing to be more patient, maybe you will find hidden gem somewhere between the scenes (in which, too bad, I mostly didn't). Not a special movie that I will remember for a long time though, but it is not that bad. Give the mirrors a chance.

I was expecting something along the lines of The Ring or Dark Water with this one. The general mood, however, it much lighter and less claustrophobic, and the story focuses more on the plight of the ex-cop and the traumatic experience that cost him his job than on the haunted supermarket in which the film opens.

Certain story points are left dangling (eg. why was Yeong-min released? They still had his prints on the gun, which, as far as evidence went, was harder than anything else in this film).

In my opinion, the potential in the effects was never fully realised. There are no real shocks. Maybe this is because Kim Seong-ho himself expected to make a Ring kind of film, so instead of going straight for the jugular, he went more for the lurching things-that-go-bump-in-the-night approach. I for one would have liked it if they had used more won on the effects and made them really jump at me (and make me jump).

Still, the final scene and the chilling realisation of what has happened to Yeong-min is worth it all.

The last few years we've exposed to a lot of Asian horror movies, from Takashii Miike movies to Korean masterpieces as "a tale of two sisters", most of these movie share one single characteristic, they are incredibly aesthetic.....this one doesn't fail in this field, except for a few little mistakes, the movie is beautifully shot unfortunately it's not enough to make a good movie....

while for example "audition", aforementioned "a tale of two sisters", or ab-normal beauty (my favorite three movies of the kind) this one lacks substance....it seems everything was made just to get beautiful mirror effects....

the story itself is full of cliché's, and while it still works the first 30 minutes, the next hour I surprised myself at wondering when this would finally end, the ending was quite a huge disappointment too (even though I won't give spoilers about it, let's just say it didn't work for me)

I give this 5 out of ten points, and I feel I'm being quite mild....

Into the mirror is indeed, yet another great Asian horror film that's plot revolves around ghosts, possessed spirits and pretty gruesome killings. The trademark plot twist isn't there, though there is a surprise ending(i wouldn't call it a twist) The film is about mirrors. In Korea it is believed that there are 2 worlds, the normal world and the mirror world. They believe that if you die in the real world you remain in the mirror world, and if you die in the mirror world you have no reflection. Into the mirror is original and at some points very eerie. The film is quite gruesome and has some cringe-worthy moments. The end is a bit muddled but still a must-see for Asian horror fans.