[movie 2007] Hansel & Gretel 헨젤과 그레텔

[Guest huangsy]

Chun Jung Myung, Jin Ji Hee, Shim Eun Gyung, Eun Won Jae

Opened 27th Dec 2007. 116 minute drama fantasy movie.

Synopsis

A reckless youngster Eun-soo drives to his mother’s, and has a car accident. When Eun-soo wakes up, he meets a mysterious girl and is led to her fairytale-like house in the middle of the forest. There, Eun-soo is trapped with the girl and her siblings who never age. Soon he learns all the adults who visited or stayed in the house have met mysterious yet terrible ends. More shockingly, their cruel deaths are drawn in details and made into a fairytale book by the children. Scared Eun-soo tries to find the way out, but the house is secluded in the forest with no way out. And then, Eun-soo discovers a book which tells a brutal end of none other than himself!

Director : YIM Pil-sung

Cast : Chun Jung Myung, Jin Ji Hee, Shim Eun Gyung, Eun Won Jae

Produced by : Barunson Film

Distributed by : CJ Entertainment

Official Site : www.lovehansel.com

Related movie site : http://movie.daum.net/movieInfo?mkey=43002

Links to trailers/making-of : http://movie.daum.net/movieInfo?mkey=43002&mode=5

Links to photos : http://movie.daum.net/movieInfo?mkey=43002&mode=4

Source : http://www.koreanfilm.or.kr/KOFIC/Channel/

Hansel and Gretel ends the year on a high

Director YIM Phil-sung assembled a fine cast and a great team of experts, the result is a well-crafted film, finely calibrated on every level.

Production designer RYU Seong-hee’s (The Host, A Bittersweet Life, Memories of Murder, Oldboy) fairy tale world is beautifully shot by director of photography KIM Jee-yong (A Bittersweet Life). The visual style is at times complemented and at times contrasted by the music of LEE Byeong-woo (King and the Clown, Voice of a Murderer). The result is a warm fairy tale feeling; but some unsettling events are foreboded, tangibly in the air.

The palpable darker edges create tension early on and keep the viewers captivated. The child actors admirably sensed the particular atmosphere of the film and their awareness – in combination with acting skills – is another highly beneficial factor to the collaborative achievement that is Hansel and Gretel.

The oldest of the three children is a boy with paranormal abilities played by EUN Won-jae. The oldest girl is portrayed by SHIM Eun-kyoung and the youngest girl is a role by JIN Ji-hee. When the adult protagonist – played by CHUN Jeong-myoung – encounters them for the first time, the children seem to be family, however, a rather unconventional one.

The children immediately feel close with the man and after the mysterious disappearance of their ‘parents’, the children subtly steer him into a father role, even though he repeatedly insist on leaving because of his own family. Along with the man we discover the secrets behind the children, their isolated house and the surrounding mysterious woods.

Like in his previous film Antarctic Journal, director YIM contemplates again on the human condition in a remote location where common laws don’t apply. In the human’s ‘nature versus nurture’ debate, he seems to tend to see the human cultural side as a superficial coat, one easily uncovered to bare the naturalistic instincts in aspects like humanity, sanity, society, and – in this film – family.

The film indirectly criticises the orphan condition in Korean society and it offers interesting comparison with representations from other cultures. Even in a rather grim Japanese story as Battle Royale, the orphans are portrayed as happy and likeable. They grew up in orphanages with a loving and professional caretaker. The situation was/is very different in Korea, even though, the two countries were similarly faced with a high number of orphans since the end of World War II.

Hansel and Gretel scrutinises the fact that Korean orphanages and related social care were not professionalised. Instead, Korean orphanages were mostly passages for international adoption. Hansel and Gretel shares the troubled representations of orphans/adoptees in other Korean popular media like the television drama Sorry, I Love You; the film Dasepo Naughty Girls.

Hansel and Gretel succeeds very well in avoiding the trap to make the children caricatures. The children are well-crafted characters with a wide range of emotions. The fairy tale setting is specifically effective in representing their naïve childlike image of the world and concepts like family. They crafted this world according to their desires.

The fantasy world within the real world also isolates the location, like the orphanage of the children used to be isolated from society, allowing malpractice and shaping the children into their current state.

Once when visiting a screening and discussion at a Korean film festival, someone commented that she was really impressed by the documentary about the disillusions of an adoptee after she found her birth parents. On the other hand, another film was unrealistic because of the happy end for the adoptee. Immediately an adoptee jumped up in surprise, “Why can’t we have a happy end?” was his rhetorical question. Whether the orphans of Hansel and Gretel will have a happy end, will rely on whether they will develop from their initial stage into independent children who realise that they don’t need parents to be happy; their future is like a yet unwritten fairy tale.

Yi Ch’ang-ho (KOFIC)

Credit Rubie:

December 27, 2007

'Hansel & Gretel' Loses Focus

By Lee Hyo-won

Staff Reporter

Actor Chun Jeong-myoung, left, stars in the horror drama "Hansel and Gretel,"

inspired by the fairytale of the same title by the Brothers Grimm.

Up and coming director Yim Pil-sung's latest work "Hansel and Gretel" is a sinister tale, which gets its inspiration from those classic children's stories with a dark twist. Here it is adults rather than children who become lost in the woods.

But the movie itself loses orientation and trails off course. There are no redeeming factors ― no breadcrumbs ― to this "brutal fairytale," which stops short of being an allegorical oxymoron.

Eun-su (Chun Jeong-myoung), while arguing over the phone with his girlfriend, has a car accident in the middle of nowhere. Deep in the heart of a forest, he finds sanctuary in a beautiful house, where a charming family of five greets him.

Here, rooms are filled with a myriad of colorful toys, and sumptuous three-tier cakes and other cavity-causing sweets are served for breakfast. But that's one thing to imagine and another to actually live through, especially when you cannot get away from it ― ever.

There is something decidedly uncanny about the "Happy Children's Home." Eun-su makes a few attempts to escape, but to no avail as the heavy snow and winding road always bring him back. To make matters worse, the parents disappear one day. While forced to look after the kids, he starts to notice strange things around the house. The eldest, Man-seok, has a dangerous temper unfit for a child, while his younger sister Yeong-hi sleepwalks and baby Jeong-sun repeatedly torments her dolls.

Meanwhile, an odd couple find themselves at the children's home, and Eun-su becomes torn, having to protect the children from the shady strangers while watching out for his own life and that of the adults.

"Hansel and Gretel" makes a decent start as a horror flick, filled with eerie shadows and haunting voices, dismantled porcelain dolls and gazing eyes peering out of bunny-print wallpapers (Ryoo Sung-hee, art director of "Old Boy" (2003), created the striking visuals).

But it suddenly makes a sharp crossover to heavy ― and disturbing ― drama. Two roads diverged in a wood, and the director tried to awkwardly straddle both. It's got to hurt.

"Hansel and Gretel" is basically about abused and abandoned children who, while taking revenge on adults who have wronged them, remain thirsty for love and attention. The victims are no longer weak and powerless but equipped with supernatural abilities.

Yet, a mystery greater than the magical plot elements is the film's rating. The senseless violence in the film makes you wonder whether it's appropriate for 12-year-olds.

"Children these days are prone to many dangers. Although the (violence) concerning the children may have been extreme, I wanted to portray (their) pain and circumstances," Yim said after the press preview. But how does one justify the disturbing means to an end, especially when it actually takes away from the flow of emotions?

It becomes difficult to digest the fine acting of the child actors who seem to have sold their soul to the film. While popular actor Chun Jeong-myoung makes a rather mediocre appearance, Park Heui-soon, who made a name for himself by starring opposite Kim Yun-jin in "Seven Days," shows how good acting can shine through even in the foggiest works.

Credits: hyowlee@koreatimes.co.kr

http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/art/2.../141_16282.html

[Guest huangsy]

A Selective View on 2007

2007 offered some fine Korean films, although journalists had a tendency to focus on the decreased numbers and percentages for Korean films; Driving with My Wife’s Lover, Hansel and Gretel, and M are – arguably – among this year’s outstanding films.

The three films display diversity in Korean cinema and also interesting commonalities. In varying degrees they seize upon the opportunities offered to them by science in an imaginative way in order to explore different dimensions of reality.

We no longer see the world as that privileged place created by a god(s) for humans. Earth is part of the universe and obeys its laws. Subsequently, classical physics’ clockwork universe has been challenged by Einstein’s relativity and the ‘strange’ world of quantum physics.

Without applying the incorrect and dangerous notion that everything is relative, the curvature of space and time, and quantum physics’ overthrowing of what used to be logical thinking according to the common Aristotelian understanding of the world, are elements incorporated into the magic film worlds of some Korean cineastes for their own purposes (which are often not scientific).

Especially, Hansel and Gretel and M use the curvature of space and time concept – without meditating on it – to explore humans from a new angle in alternative and time defying worlds. Driving with My Wife’s Lover’s realms are in a familiar world, but apply the possibility for unexpected phenomenon to create absurd situations which effectively paint the characters and propel the story development.

The three films interlink these alternative situations and worlds with the exploration of humanity. In sciences’ aftermath Friedrich Nietzsche declared ‘god is dead’, when he argued that religion is a human creation and that later it is ‘forgotten’ that humans created it themselves.

Subsequent philosophers like the – somewhat out-of-fashion – existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre celebrated the new context by elaborating on the inherent freedom and humanism; while Albert Camus pondered, “There is but one truly philosophical problem, and that is suicide,” thereby centring the question: is life worth living?

However, Michel Foucault would state the ‘death of humans’. He critically analysed the concept and meaning of humanism in a historical and social context as a tool for inclusion of some and exclusion of others. A construct to expel certain people, based on various grounds.

Foucault – among others – would also go on to declare the ‘death of the author’, as he argued that cultural expressions are not so much the creation of an individual writer, but a product of it’s societal context; in the process criticising the tendency to write history from a ‘great man’ perspective.

The alternative worlds prove efficacious settings for the development of characters and the exploration of humanism. Driving with My Wife’s Lover and Hansel and Gretel portray marginalised people, but with affection.

In Driving with My Wife’s Lover, the protagonist is faced with several obstacles, but primarily, he must face himself and come to terms with his life while on a road trip that includes the chasing of watermelons down a road.

Hansel and Gretel’s characters are abused orphans, excluded from society since childhood, whose perception on the world is sadly naïve and unrealistic. Their misconception of the celebrated social institution family and the concept of parents, lead to a longing for those things they idealise, but never knew.

In Korea, orphanages were not professionalised and are mostly temporary passages for numerous international adoptions. Hansel and Gretel sides with the children who must learn that they are responsible for their own happiness and that they don’t necessarily need parents for that.

The fairy tale setting within the real world allows the film to properly represent the childlike perceptions of the world and how they created their life according to their unfulfilled desires.

M also optimally uses a fantasy world to explore its protagonist, a troubled writer. Through the scenes in alternative realities, the writer comes in touch with his forgotten past and his forgotten first love. This allows M to contemplate on human’s greatest and darkest sides in relation to the concept of love.

This makes the writer in M highly individual; his individual experiences shape his being. The same applies for the directors LEE Myung-Se (M), YIM Phil-sung (Hansel and Gretel), and KIM Tai-sik (Driving with My Wife’s Lover) to a high degree. Their films obviously deal with Korean social issues, but display their own personal flavours that distinctively authorise their works. No matter how Korean films are linked with its society, the author is far from ‘dead’ in Korean cinema.

These films creatively – rather than trying to be accurately – employ opportunities offered to them to create their own takes on reality for rich and challenging settings that allow supportive backgrounds and insights into the characters; while contemplating the universal questions in a local context which bring forth alternative interpretations and conclusions, not always in sync with the interesting theories posted by philosophers concerning us, humans.

Suicide is not addressed; these films deal with the freedom people have to shape their own lives, but first must search within themselves while treading in an unfamiliar world. The three films share troubled protagonists struggling with what is reality, however, the characters may be flawed and/or marginalized by society, the three films don’t exclude them, but show humane compassion for them while they try to retrace the bread crumbs in order to find their way back.

Yi Ch’ang-ho (KOFIC)

Source : http://www.koreanfilm.or.kr/

[Guest huangsy]

Press conference on 20 Dec 2007

news clip at

http://kr.news.yahoo.com/service/news/shel...mp;newssetid=83

http://kr.news.yahoo.com/service/news/shel...;newssetid=1352

http://kr.news.yahoo.com/service/news/shel...;newssetid=1352

[Guest Greener]

I want to see this movie. It is interesting and fear. I wish Chun Jung Myung with success for Hansel&Gretel.

[Guest belle90]

wow looks so interesting!

Can't wait to watch it!!

[Guest mei_yee_chan]

Ooo...thanks for creating the thread. I was wondering why there wasn't one.

The reviews seem to be pretty good. Will definitely watch this (in broad daylight ).

[Guest fttsluva]

Looking forward to this movie, JJM is a great actor

so this is worth waiting for i'm sure.

So sad that he had to go to the army. missing him already.

[Guest boongheelady]

I want to see this movie. I like Chun Jung Myung so much .

[Guest benpim]

MV by SMarie7

8eight - 사이 (Hansel & Gretel kmovie OST)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4cUW79IbbY...feature=related

:rolleyes:

[hyperanime]

This looks REALLY interesting!

I want to watch this!

I like the twist on the plot, where the adults get lost

[nana.yahxd]

oh i was just about to make a topic for this too

D:

but this movie looks really good

its such a twisted plot ..i can't wait ..but dang i wonder when we'll be able to download it

[Guest doonawhale]

I'm rather afraid of watching horror movies,

But I'm so going to watch this one.

It's so pretty looking.

[Guest ♡ Mrs Jung Ji Hoon ♡]

hmm.. i went to the theater really randomly on the day this movie was released and it was the only movie starting at that time so i went in.. thinking it might be interesting if it was a horror story.. but my uncle (who went with me) fell asleep 10 minutes into the movie and i was just watching because it would be a waste of money if i didn't >< i would honestly only recommend this movie to a person if they REALLY REALLY liked chun jung myung and all they wanted to do was stare at him (and not pay attention to the story,) or if the person was under 10 years old. It's a "horror" movie for children and on the American rating system, I would rate it a G movie..

[Guest vvn]

I really want to watch this... it doesn't look like a horror movie at all. LOL.

OH someone please sub it

[Guest kstaree]

where kan i watch this at with subs?

[Guest michelle-pyon]

where kan i watch this at with subs?

I would like to know where I could download it with English subs as well.

[Guest S.H.E_fan]

anyone know when this will be released on dvd.. waiting to watch this one, but now the horror seems to be decreased

[Guest benpim]

UPDATE

Hansel and Gretel (DVD) (DTS) (First Release Limited Edition) (Korea Version)

Our Price: US$29.99 [~THB1,011.71]

YesAsia Editorial Description

A children's beloved fairy tale takes a bizarre and frightening twist in Hansel and Gretel, a blood-spatting fantasy horror from award-winning director Im Pil Seong (Antarctic Journal). In the classic Grimm Brothers' folk tale of the same name, the two young protagonists happily find their way back home after pushing the evil witch into the burning furnace. But beneath its happy telling lies the disturbing truth that traces roots back to one of history's darkest times when poverty forced many parents to abandon their kids. Drawing from such historical tragedy, the film stretches the audience's imagination by asking, "what would have happened if Hansel and Gretel were forever trapped in the dark woods?" Breaking all the rules typical of a fairy tale fantasy, director Im deftly weaves the elements of horror into a psychological tale surrounding the misfortunes of abandoned kids who often end up spending the rest of their lives searching for the love that they never had. The film has recently garnered international acclaim and competed at several international film festivals such as the 41st Sitges International Fantasy Film Festival and the 27th Vancouver International Film Festival.

In his last film before heading out to military service, Chun Jeong Myung (The Aggressives) stars as Eun Soo, who was abandoned by his mother at an early age. While on his way to reunite with his long-lost mother, Eun Soo runs into an accident and loses consciousness. Waking up in the middle of a dark forest, he meets a red-cloaked girl who guides him to her eerie-looking house where he meets her strange family. Though it's quite obvious that there are no contacts with the outside world, the house is somehow always filled with toys, sweets, and other unimaginable goodies. Eun Soo soon learns there is no way out of the forest and a few days later, he notices that the children are bringing in more grown-ups from the woods..

This edition comes with the following special features:

# Making Of Hansel and Gretel

# Making Of Art and Setting

# Deleted Scenes with Commentaries

# Interview with Musical Director Lee Byung Woo

# Computer Graphics

# Short Film Mobile starring Park Hye Il

# Sneak Preview and Theatrical Trailer

© 2008 YesAsia.com Ltd. All rights reserved. This original content has been created by or licensed to YesAsia.com, and cannot be copied or republished in any medium without the express written permission of YesAsia.com.

Region Code: 3 - South East Asia (including Hong Kong, S. Korea and Taiwan) What is it?

Release Date: 2008-09-03

Language: Korean

Subtitles: Korean, English

Country of Origin: South Korea

Picture Format: NTSC What is it?

Disc Format(s): DVD

Publisher: CJ Entertainment

Other Information: 2 Disc

Package Weight: 200 (g)

credit : http://www.yesasia.com/global/hansel-and-g...-0-en/info.html

[motoway065]

Anyone else has seen this? So I watched this movie today..it was pretty good, I think the child actors did a great job esp the one that played Young Hee and the boy. The movie has some interesting parts and it was pretty sad as well. But I found some elements to it kinda dumb (ie.

the santa clause and the magical powers

. However, overall, I enjoyed the movie..different from the normal korean horror flicks and you get a sense of the sad lives of orphans in korea, or at least those during the 60s

[Guest benpim]

Hansel-and-Gretel-Movie view online

Hansel and Gretel Movie-Part-1

http://www.crunchyroll.com/media-433480/Ha...vie-Part-1.html

Hansel and Gretel Movie-Part-2

http://www.crunchyroll.com/media-433534/Ha...vie-Part-2.html

Hansel and Gretel Movie-Part-3

http://www.crunchyroll.com/media-433580/Ha...vie-Part-3.html

Hansel and Gretel Movie-Part-4

http://www.crunchyroll.com/media-433604/Ha...rt-4-Final.html

Credit : zkatey1 @ http://www.crunchyroll.com/user/zkatey1