Reviews

This film has been described as a horror, but it's more of a psychological thriller that's on a par with anything out of Hollywood.

The film starts with sisters Soo-mi and Soo-yeon returning home from a mental institution. They have a new stepmother who is making a concerted effort to be polite to the girls, but is faced with hostility and indifference from Soo-mi. As the elder sister, Soo-mi feels responsible for the younger and naive Soo-yeon and does her best to protect her from the step mother. The two sisters keep themselves separate from the stepmother and this gradually builds into tension and resentment between the stepmother and Soo-mi.

Suddenly a major plot twist is revealed and the film completely turns on its head into an original and unique conclusion which left me confused and immediately sought to re-watch the last hour again.

This is definitely a slow burner, but the originality of the plot leaves the viewer intrigued and satisfied as to how this has been portrayed. It needs to be watched again in order to truly appreciate the cleverness of the story.

This is a decent film with a good plot line. However the delivery is slow and could be better. The lead character who plays the Mother, typifies a classic maternal figure. She dotes on her son and is constantly worrying for, and nagging her son. He sleeps next to her every-night and the son is the Mother's world.

When her son (the brilliant Bin Won) is accused of murder, the Mother fights for his justice and attempts to seek out the truth. At this point the story goes through a slow pace and a series of clues and knowledge is gathered, but the viewer is left wondering where this is leading and how this is going to progress.

Suddenly, the last half an hour of the film, the plot begins to get interesting again and we see the true characteristics of the Mother which is superbly portrayed. The conclusion of the film is somewhat shocking, but, on reflection of the entire film, is not surprising.

Overall, this has a good plot and is definitely one to watch, albeit slow moving at times.

Bedevilled falls into the classic Korean revenge genre and has commonly been compared to the fantastic Oldboy. Whilst Bedevilled is a fantastic movie, the similarities in plot to Oldboy are miles apart.

The film starts off a little like Drag Me to Hell and I wasn't quite sure whether this was going to be an eerie horror film. The initial lead character Hae-won comes across as a strong, independent woman living a normal modern life in Seoul. After being suspended from work, Hae-won decides to get out of the city for a break to the village where she grew up. She goes to visit Bok-nam, an old childhood friend who has been writing to Hae-won for a number of years, and which Hae-won has chosen to ignore for a number of years.

Soon after arriving in the village, it is clear that village life is the complete opposite to Hae-won's life in Seoul. Bok-nam leads a sad, repressed life where she is dominated by her husband, his brother and the elder women in the village, particularly her mother in law. She yearns for a life like Hae-won, but Hae-won has become a cold, distant person only concerned with herself, who cares little to understand and help Bok-nam.

It soon becomes clear that this film is about Bok-nam and her life. She suddenly reaches a point where she has the confidence and conviction to change her life for the better and becomes the main protagonist of the film. What follows is uneasy and brutal path, which becomes easy to empathise with due to the fantastic performance of Yeong-hie Seo (Bok-nam) and the disappointed felt towards her friend Hae-won.

This is a gritty and, at times, brutal film played out in a relatively simple manner. The story is by no means as clever and sophisticated as Oldboy, however it is a powerful and compelling story.