Cinderella

Name: Cinderella

Director: Man-dae Bong

Release Date: August 17, 2006

Introduction:

As I'm sure you've heard, Asian women have a fat for plastic surgery, and chief among these are South Korean women. Lately, it has gotten to the point where even Korean men are partaking in this commonplace after school activity. New eyelids are given as graduation presents; jaw shavings and nose jobs as birthday presents. Of course, common surgery can easily be viewed as a rather expensive method of self-improvement, but in this Korean horror film, plastic surgery can also be deadly to both your physical and mental health. This is the second movie from director Man-dae Bong.

Synopsis:

The film opens a flashback of a birthday gone horribly wrong, then immediately flashes to an incredibly inaccurate plastic surgery performed on a young Korean women seeking a jaw reduction. The surgeon, Yoon Hee, has a lovely daughter who is friends with the girl being operated on. The daughter, Hyeon Su, is not obsessed with facial reconstruction, unlike most of her friends. The two of them seem to have a wonderful and close mother-daughter relationship, until Hyeon Su's friend that was operated upon begins to be tormented by visions of a vengeful ghost with long black hair (we haven't seen that before...) Soon, it becomes apparent that Yoon Hee is hiding a deep dark secret, and trouble brews as it slowly begins to surface...

Review:

I kind of enjoyed this movie. It seems to lack a certain depth though. I mean, really good horror movies tend to pull you into them so that feel like actually in there witnessing all of these events. A really good movie in general has you sympathize with the characters and become genuinely interested in the happenings of their lives. Cinderella lacked this sense of depth. Also, very bad title choice in my opinion. You can sort of draw the stepmother-daughter-stepdaughter connection a little, but for the most part, no. It doesn't work all that well. The main characters themselves were portrayed by fairly decent actresses, but they still left me feeling incredibly cold (no ice pun intended, if you see the film, hehe). The pace is also *quite* slow and the character development was a bit limited for my tastes.

I know, kind of harsh, but that doesn't mean that I hated the movie. For one, the visuals were quite pretty, so it was a pleasant movie to watch, and I ultimately did become emotionally moved by the plight of the two girls, though that was largely due to the incredibly tragic storyline. The scares though, were CHEAP. At the end, they put in this half-hearted attempt to scare you that mostly did not work at all. I am easily frightened. The X-Files once scared me so hard that I couldn't sleep for five weeks. This movie did not scare me all that much. I slept fine.

All in all, it had a good plot-line and back story, but I feel like the director didn't let it live up to it's full potential. Basically, a possibly good movie with incredibly bad editing.

NOTE: The ending is incredibly ambiguous and maybe it's because I spaced out while attempting to watch this, but if you can figure it out, leave me a message/comment, I'd be glad to discuss the two interpretations of the end that I came up with.

Ratings:
Entertainment: 6
Scares: 4 (unless you're into the overdone long haired ghost thing)
Gore: 7 (lots of knives into faces. and the ice thing....why would you DO THAT??)

*watch it if you're bored, just get ready to be incredibly confused*

Video:

Online Videos by Veoh.com

You have to download this in order to watch it if you don't speak Korean because it's not subbed.
I am including the CrunchyRoll version as well, though the video quality is not so good.

Cinderella Crunchy Roll Video Link

Reincarnation

Name: Rinne (Japan
Reincarnation (USA)

Director: Takashi Shimizu

Release Date: January 7, 2006

Introduction:

This movie by director Takashi Shimizu is actually the third installment of a six movie project called J-Horror Theater, which will feature six movies from different horror movie directors (Norio Tsuruta, Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Hideo Nakata, Takashi Shimizu, Masayuki Ochiai and Hiroshi Takahashi). The first two are called Kansen and Yogen (Infection and Premonition, respectively). Shimizu has directed various horror movies like Ju-on, Ju-on 2, and Marebito (which I will try to find and review ASAP!).

Synopsis:

Reincarnation opens on a movie director creating horror film centered on eleven homicides committed by a mysterious director at an infamous hotel in Gunma in 1970. Nine are hapless victims that just happened to be in the hotel, while one was his wife, and the other was his daughter. One of the girls auditioning for the part of the daughter (who was much younger in reality than the girl cast to play her) keeps getting strange visions of a young girl holding a creepy looking doll. The actors are all led to the hotel in order to get a feel for place.

Another of the girls who tried out for the part of the daughter claims that she would be the most suitable for the job because she is in fact the reincarnation of this young girl. Sadly, strange deaths begin to occur, and the only thing these victims have in common is that fact that they are all younger than thirty-five…

Review:

I guess this movie was a decent watch, but it was nothing too special. The story featured some originality, but I found it to be rather droll and contrived at times. There are, of course, the overused “ghost in closet” and “creepy child” tools used way too often in these movies, though it did feature a decently involving plotline (though after a while, you could definitely see it coming). I guess I found the movie to be rather limiting in terms of character development, and, well, basically characters that we actually got to know. I mean, all the ghosts were so incredibly one-sided, and I guess I felt like that girl didn’t get what she deserved.

The building blocks for a good movie were all there, but instead of coming together in a seamless whole, this movie looks pieced-together and rather flat. It’s not as scary as I expected it to be, and the storyline seemed a bit simple. All in all, it was just plain mindless entertainment. Enjoy, if you’re bored, but it’s nothing special. There’s lots of other good movies out there, though if you want something along the lines of Chakushin Ari, by all means, go for it!

Ratings:
Entertainment: 6
Scares: 6
Gore: 3

*Watch it if you must, but it's nothing great*

Video:

Online Videos by Veoh.com