[Movie 2003] A Tale Of Two Sisters/ Janghwa Hongryeon 장화, 홍련

[Guest njnazj]

i am really confuse with this movie.. but still.. i think i'll rewatch it some other day.. hmm..

[rubie]

September 3, 2011

by Deaditor brutalashell.com

Definitive Directors: Kim Jee-woon by JC De Leon

Here at Brutal as Hell we’re coming to an understanding about the simplistic nature of the label ‘horror.’ That realization is that the word horror can have many different meanings to different people, and we as a site are slowly beginning to expand upon the simplistic notion of films categorized either horror or not. This is the reason I chose to review a film like Rise of the Planet of the Apes recently, because although not a horror film in its own right, it was nonetheless an absolutely terrifying film. Sometimes a film doesn’t have to be scary for us to cover; sometimes brutal and unrelenting violence is what will deem a film worthy of our coverage. Throughout the Definitive Director series here at Brutal as Hell, you’ll read about a lot of great horror directors, and South Korea’s Kim Jee-woon might be the only one who has directed one true ‘horror’ film, but his other films are absolutely and unequivocally brutal in their own regard.

I Saw the Devil

On a snowy night Joo-yeon ventures into the wrong place at the wrong time when her car breaks down and the only one left to offer her assistance is psychopathic rapist and killer Kyung-chul (Choi Min-sik, Oldboy). He methodically cuts her body into several pieces and when it’s discovered that she’s gone missing, a search is conducted where her severed head is discovered. Her fiance, a Korean secret agent named Soo-hyeon (Lee Byung-hun) is determined to find her killer, no matter the monster he may become.

I Saw the Devil takes the concept of revenge as we know it and expands upon it. So often in film someone seeking revenge only wants to kill. Kim Jee-woon manages to create a set of characters here who actually kind of complement each other. Soo-hyeon is just as calculating and merciless as Kyung-chul, but of course his purpose is… noble? Sort of? That’s what makes this film so brilliant: throughout the course of his revenge, Soo-hyeon is playing a cat-and-mouse game on screen that we haven’t really seen before, and to play up the insanity of Kyung-chul, he never learns his lesson. In one of his first moments of freedom, from whoever this mystery man is that keeps beating the ever-loving mini cooper out of him, he attempts to rape another woman only to be subjected one of the more brutal beatings in the film.

This was no doubt Jee-woon’s darkest film to date, yet the overall color of it seemed vivid enough when needed. This created one of the more interesting problems in viewing the film. It’s too beautiful to take your eyes off of, yet the violence here is almost too brutal to watch. But you can’t look away, and you certainly can’t turn your ears off as the sound design is absolutely brilliant.

It’s terrifying – the type of punishment that the human mind can come up with inflicting on another human being, and Kim Jee-woon captures it beautifully, if not also brilliantly, in I Saw the Devil.

A Tale of Two Sisters

Kim Jee-woon’s lone ‘true horror’ feature. This supernatural film from Kim Jee-woon is inspired by the ancient Korean folktale “Jangha and Hongryun.” A Tale of Two Sisters is set in an isolated lakeside house where two young girls, Su-mi (Im Su-jung) and Su-yeon (Mun Geun-yeong) return home after being hospitalized following the death of their mother. Their father Mu-Hyun (Kim Gab-su), in the meantime, has re-married Eun-joo (Yeom Jeong-ah), who despite her best efforts can’t seem to get in the girls’ good favor. Strange, violent and dark visions begin to disturb Su-mi and she becomes convinced that Eun-joo is keeping a dark secret from the family.

It might sound vaguely familiar to you, and if it does it’s because this film was remade here in America under the name The Uninvited, and you probably watched it, you watcher of Americanized-Asian-film-remakes. If you liked that film you should definitely check out Kim Jee-woon’s version. It’s one of his earlier feature films, and when compared with I Saw the Devil you’ll notice that there is certainly a difference between the two, and most of those differences stem from his growth as a filmmaker. A Tale of Two Sisters is dark most of the time, and when it’s time for scary things to go down, just like the amount of blood and violence in his other films, Kim Jee-woon doesn’t disappoint. It’s got some pacing issues, but that could also be attributed a little to the source material at the heart of the story.

What’s great about Kim Jee-woon is that he’s never stuck to one visual style, and he always makes fantastic use of music in his films. Two of his other films, A Bittersweet Life and The Good, the Bad, and the Weird are equally rewatchable in their own right. Both of those films also star Lee Byung-hun, and if you watch these films enough, he just might become one of your favorite up and coming actors. If you insist on seeing him in American films, he can be seen in 2009’s G.I. Joe: Rise of the Cobra, and he can be seen in the upcoming G.I. Joe 2: Retaliation as Storm Shadow.

As for Kim Jee-woon’s next project, you can thank the over-active libido of Arnold Schwarzenegger. When most other film projects failed after his recent scandal, Kim Jee-woon’s next film, Last Stand, offered up a role written specifically for Arnold and he accepted it. It will be Kim Jee-woon’s American debut, courtesy of Lionsgate in 2013, and like the rest of his films should be amazing.

Kim Jee-woon, not exactly a ‘horror’ director, but a director of some damn good and brutal films that we will see plenty of in the future.