Phone
Another one of Tartan’s Asia Extreme titles, this time from South Korea, a Country blessed with fine technicians and a full understanding of Cinema in both its educational and entertainment guises. PHONE plugs for the latter and partially achieves it. In demonstration of this contribution to entertainment, this one is supported by the new Disney Korean arm, Buena Vista Korea.
Another one of Tartan’s Asia Extreme titles, this time from South Korea, a Country blessed with fine technicians and a full understanding of Cinema in both its educational and entertainment guises. PHONE plugs for the latter and partially achieves it. In demonstration of this contribution to entertainment, this one is supported by the new Disney Korean arm, Buena Vista Korea. I guess this way they will immediately own part of the rights for the American remakes when the quality hits that of the Japanese and Hong Kong film Industries importable products. It does bring tears to the eyes, especially after the long battle across Europe after the end of the Second World War, for each country to take control of their own indigenous film industries.
PHONE, as the director states in the accompanying interviews, “is a genuine horror film”. A horror film it is but a genuine one, well each person who watches it will be the best judge of that. Horror films are mainly atmospheres built and held together by a seemingly straight forward story. In PHONE it is questionable whether this atmosphere is fully maintained as the story resembles a miss match of withheld information and for a horror film rather quick editing. As the story begins to take over the seemingly simple story at the beginning, the atmosphere is split and as soon as the spell is broke then it is arguably at that point when you begin to lose interest in what the hell is really happening with all this phone business. In fact many parts seem fairly contrived and the passing of key character information is crow barred into the initial sequences. Without giving away too much information, the plot focuses on a family of 3 and the woman who lent the family her eggs for the family’s child. Everything else that happens centers around this information.
The phone part of the film is an intriguing mystery at the start of the film, unfolding in the same way that most of these Asian horror films do, by seeing an initial murder, then by following a really attractive young girl around who gets ensnared in the films gimmick, and as she starts to realise the cause of her anguish, she gets a sniff of past events revolving around the gimmick and chases up leads that draws her closer in to the initial mystery. Just like THE RING and sort of similar to THE GRUDGE. So the story evolves in a very unoriginal way, until the final scenes when the story actually becomes quite boring, partly down to the fact that the plot just withholds too much initial information from the viewer, in relation to the 4 protagonists. However, it also has plus points. It has many pretty intense sequences and harbours many excellent performances. Specifically by the stunningly beautiful Ha Ji-Won (another unoriginal element from this horror film), who has a range of emotions that the all actors and would be actors should stand up and take note of. The film finally centers around a young child, yes like in POLTERGEIST, THE EXORCIST, THE SHINING, ET etc, and according to the insert booklet in this DVD (written by Justin Bowyer, an expert on South Korean and Japanese cinema), this young child turns in a performance to match the eeriness of 3 of the 4 aforementioned child stars. The problem is that is a pretty false comparison because A) this film is not that scary and B) her scenes seem pretty staged. The Cinematography is fantastic, just like the recent A TALE OF 2 SISTERS, and challenges any of the other film industries to match its execution on such small budgets. However, just like A TALE OF 2 SISTERS, the work falls by the wayside as the story cannot compete with the technical excellence. As an interesting aside, the majority of films that suffer this problem involves Directors who have either fully written of partially written the shooting script. As they are two very different skills, maybe its time for the ego to fall off of certain peoples shoulders and concentrate on just one job.
2 DELETED SCENES (3 mins)
Anyway, the DVD itself is a lot better than the film which it showboats. Tartan have once again signed up an interesting list of bonus features that give you a clear sense of what it was like to make this film during the production phase.
First up are 2 deleted scenes, which, as is par for the course are pretty irrelevant. However they do differ from the usual, in as much as we see the deleted scenes being shot and are presented to us on DV cam, with the crew between the actors and the shooting camera. This was quite an interesting thing too watch, more interesting than the scene than you are suppost to focus on.
INTERVIEWS (15 mins)
It is during this section that we get the most substantial contribution from the director Byeong-Ki Ahn, who tells us how he got the idea for this film from THE RING and that his next film will maybe be about and titled CHAIN LETTERS. I have a few suggestions for films as well. How about MSN MESSENGER or COMPUTER, or THE FAX MACHINE, or for real fans a film called DVD, about a beautiful woman who rents the DVD of THE RING and events start to unfold just like in the film THE RING. Really push the boat out. Anyway without my asides, this section interviews the 5 principal cast members and imparts interesting information to us about their experiences on this film and how it has helped their careers.
EPILOGUE (2 mins)
This is a short section about the finishing of the last shot of principal photography, where we see the little actress telling us who she will miss most.
SCENE SPECIFIC COMMENTARY (10 Mins)
The little girl is interviewed over the top of a few random scenes in which she appears in the film. To the DVD’s credit the 10 minutes are played one after the other and you don’t have to watch the whole film to locate her speaking, like you do with THE FRENCH CONNECTION DVD’s and others. Once again we see that she is a little cutey, although you can also tell that all this pandering to her young ego may very well take her down the Drew Barrymore road. Let’s hope not.
THE MAKING OF (1 Hour 3 Mins)
This part is split into 3 separate sections:
MAKING THE FILM (44 Mins)
This shows you the shooting of all the key sequences in the film, without splitting it up with interviews etc. It is a ‘making of’ minus all the artificial gumpf you usually get. It provides you with a real feel for what it was like to be on set, all the boring waiting time and all. The cast and crew seemed like they had a lot of fun during the making of this film and that they all had to work pretty intensely when they were shooting. Although nothing more than curiosity value this provides a very interesting insight.
PRODUCTION NOTES (6 Mins)
This shows you the production designers and their crew developing, creating and executing the (to remain nameless) show piece of the films climax. Again it is without voice over and interviews, we are the fly on the wall.
BEHIND THE SCENES (14 Mins)
This is the gaffs and the entertainment during the waiting time section. Again nothing more than curiosity value but it does add to a DVD that is lovingly presented.
The picture is crystal clear and the sound comes in Tartan’s 3 standard forms. I listened to the DD 5.1 track and although it was too busy for my liking with a poor concept of sound design and an overuse of music and squawks to emphasise every single important little detail, I could well imagine it getting a more involved viewer looking over there shoulder at home and potentially touching cloth..
With horror films a viewers reaction can depend on the own personal tastes and also the mood that they are watching the film in. I was expecting good things from this one, in the same way I was from A TALE OF 2 SISTERS. Unfortunately I had an allergic reaction to it. After seeing Kim Ki-Duk’s fantastic THE ISLE, which I am sure will be released by Tartan soon, South Korean film’s have yet to prove that they have the history to execute a fine horror film tradition. Their psychological and social dramas at present have few competitors, considering budget restrictions, but their horror films are so far suffering from a miss match between their styles (which are exemplary) and their contrived emphasis on having too detailed plots. The scariest horror films unfold with an ease and never destroy or interfere with the atmosphere, they complement it. Myself, I also had an allergic reaction to THE RING, due to its inclusion of virtually every horror idea of any merit being shown one scene after the next, but it had a huge audience. I am sure that this film will also appeal to many people and indeed will frighten them half to death, it was after all the 8th biggest earner in 2002 in South Korea. So don’t take my word for it, check it out and see what you think because if you like the film then this will certainly be one DVD that you would like to own as its extras and presentation are first class.
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