20131023: Horror Review--Hansel and Gretel

Hansel & Gretel (Henjel gwa Geuretel)

1. Fundamentals, reception.
1. South Korean live action feature length film, 2007, NR, 116 minutes, horror.  Aspect 1.85
2. IMDB: 6.8/10.0 from 2,539 user ratings.
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 73% on the meter; 69% liked it from 1,139 audience ratings.
4. Netflix: 3.4/5.0 from audience ratings for 28,817 users. Estimated budget, 4 million USD.
5. Directed by: Pil-Sung Yim.
6. Starring: Jeong-myeong Cheon as Eun-Soo Lee, Eun-kyung Shim as Young Hee Kim, Young-nam Jang as Soojeong, Ji-hee Jin as Jung Soon, Kyeong Ik as Youngsik, Hee-soon Park as Deacon-byun, Eun Won-jae as Man-bok.


2. Setup and Plot
1. An irresponsible husband, Eun-Soo, goes off on a wild goose chase instead of being with this pregnant wife.  He totals a hugely expensive vehicle to avoid an already dead squirrel on the road.  He was fooling about with his telephone right before this happened.  Brilliant.


2. When he wakes up again, it is night, and Young Hee has found him.  She has a lantern, seems kindly disposed toward him, and leads him to a place to stay, the 'House of Happy Children.'  It is lovely inside, and looks like everyday is Christmas.  They patch up his more major wounds from the accident.


3. Eun-Soo meets Young Hee's mother, father, younger sister, and older brother, Man-bok.  He wakes up in a room full of toys and Christmas gadgets.  The family treats him to a breakfast of sweets, claiming that they had already eaten.  A bit suspicious, perhaps?


4. Eun-Soo looks for a way out on the first day.  He does not find it, and the day seems woefully short.  The family of five and Eun-Soo have some strange discussions.


5. On the second day, Eun-Soo awakes to find the parents gone.  They left him a note asking him to take care of the children.  He does for a bit, but then tries to make it to town.  He fails again.  He thought he saw someone in the woods; the children deny this as a possibility.  The phone is still out; how would they call to ask for it to be fixed?  Eun-Soo continues hearing unexplained bumps and the like.  Then, there seems to be something in the attic.  When examined with a torch, though, the attic only contains more children's toys.  After expressing his dismay, Man-bok gives him a map.


6. On the third day, he goes exploring using the map.  He meets another couple from the road; they insist on going to the house, despite his advice against.  He eventually returns rather than die in the snow and cold.  The new couple turn out to be Christians, which adds a different layer.


7. The snow continues on the fourth day, and Eun-Soo's desperation rises.  He finds a television that still runs with the power cord not plugged in.  This does not help.


8. Eun-Soo finds a fairy tale book, and the boy gets cross with him for touching it.  Three of the book's characters had their faces cut out and replaced with cut out photo pieces of the three children.  He discovers the 'mother' from the initial meeting in the attic.  She shows him that the attic can be a limitless maze, rather like the surrounding forest.


9. He has a long metaphorical talk with the three children.  He tells an engaging fairly tale, then weaves himself into it, as the prince who must return to his pregnant princess.  Man-bok, however, concludes the tale by telling Eun-Soo they will cut off his arms and legs so that he is unable to leave.  Great stuff.


10. The 'Christian' woman turns out to be a thief, and the man someone who wants to rule the roost with an iron, bible-thumping fist.  Eun-Soo warns him against this, but he physically attacks in return.  Yet another monster; great.


11. Eun-Soo gears up to try to escape again, this time leaving a trail of breadcrumbs.  Then he discovers that the meat in the refrigerator is from the first 'father' that he met.  So the kids are carnivorous fairies or demons or whatever.


12. The layering keeps getting deeper for Eun-Soo, as he makes his way through more documents in the attic.  He finds orphanage birth records for the three children, from 1959, 1960, 1965.  Apparently they were frozen in time somehow, except perhaps for Young Hee, who looks 47 in one of the rooms.  He makes another attempt to escape and fails again, stopping just short of a cliff edge overlooking and ocean.


13. The Christian man has a confrontation with the children.  He has a certain box, and has gagged the younger girl.  He and Man-bok share the act of patricide.  Man-bok knocks the man out using magic.  The youngest whines about all parents being the same, that is, rotten.


14. So that's it.  Man-bok killed his father, and decided that all bad adults need to be punished like the punishment in Hansel and Gretel.  He shows Eun-Soo the small book of line drawings of Hansel and Gretel.  The children recount more of the past, regarding the depths of the 'bad adults' problem.  It is a nasty story, but the ultimate culprit in the piece is an amusing choice.


15. Can Eun-Soo help break the obsession, the lock on this delusion?  The children want him to stay forever, but he feels obligated to be with his own child, yet to be born, and Hae Young, his child's mother.


3. Conclusions
1. One line summary: Irresponsible husband gets lost in the woods, then in his own delusions.
2. Four stars of five.


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 5/10 For the introduction and credits: jerky camera movement, keyhole sized vignette filters, with poor focus, on multiple badly done overlaid images.  Even after this terrible beginning, the jerky camera movements continue, accompanied by soft focus and 'who cares?' framing.  The over saturated colors are pleasantly chosen, at least.


2. Sound: 10/10 As good as the visuals are bad.


3. Acting: 10/10 Rather good.  I liked the child actors better than I thought I would.


4. Screenplay: 9/10 A bit long, but a good story told through the movie.