20131026: Horror Review--To Catch a Virgin Ghost

To Catch a Virgin Ghost (Sisily 2km)

1. Fundamentals, reception.
1. South Korean live action feature length film, 2004, NR, 102 minutes, comedy, crime, horror.  Spoken word is Korean, subtitles in English.
2. IMDB: 6.6/10.0 from 366 user ratings.
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 'No reviews yet,' and zero audience ratings.
4. Netflix: 3.3/5.0 from 7,831 user ratings.
5. Directed by: Jeong-won Shin; written by: In-ho Wang and Chang-shi Lee.
6. Starring: Chang Jung Lim as Yang Yi, Oh-Jung Kwon as Seok-tae, Yi Shin as Ghost, Eun-kyeong Lim as Song Yi.


2. Setup and Plot
1. Our protagonist, Seok-tae, is a thief who murders his friend then flees.  He seems amused as his friend suffocates during their last telephone conversation.  Nice start.  When he sees the sign 'Sisily 2km' there is another sign warning of serious accidents in the area.  As per cliche, he decides to put out his cigarette, thereby taking his eyes off the road, then rolls his SUV off the road through the guard rail.  Apparently he's a man of robust good luck, since he was able to walk the 2 kilometers to the town of Sisily.


2. The setup is clearly that Seok-tae has a hard time during the film, and he's moving there swimmingly.  His friend told him that their mutual boss will kill him in three days.  One can only hope.


3. Seok-tae faints under embarrassing and humorous circumstances.  The locals think he's dead, and also find one of the diamonds he stole.  While walling him up, he rouses and won't shut up.  They give him an extra shovel to the head.  They have no idea that he swallowed many of the diamonds.


4. The gang arrives and sets about provoking and bullying the locals.  The idiot relative to an even bigger crime boss is with them.  He keeps finding just the right things, and they keep ignoring him.


5. During the first night staying with the locals, the thugs start getting rattled from bad dreams and waking hallucinations, plus the locals doing Buddhist chants to drive out bad spirits.  That trend continues the next day, though a bit more slowly in the light of day.


6. The assassin named The Monk keeps talking about local ghost lore, including the Virgin Ghost.  The Monk tells them that the Virgin Ghost type is afraid of 'man things' which results in ridiculous and funny visuals.  The thread that allows Seok-tae to 'survive' is hilarious.  When the crooks recover the diamonds, the locals find out there were several.  After that, they attack the crooks and do rather well, but not well enough, of course.


7. There are several places where the movie might have ended, but the comedy was not exhausted yet.  Will the ghost resolve this, or just the normal course of real events?  Loved the Virgin Ghost's explanation of who the local farmers really were, and the lead gangster's discussions with her.


3. Conclusions
1. One line summary: Criminals are undone by clever locals, ghosts, and Murphy's law.
2. Four stars of five.


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 8/10 Super in daylight exteriors.  Not too bad for the darker interior and night shots.


2. Sound: 10/10 Rich and kind to the ear.


3. Acting: 8/10 Hate the character Seok-tae, since he listens to Chuck Mangione. (That's just me, of course.) On the whole though, I liked the acting.


4. Screenplay: 9/10 Pleasant comedy of errors; nicely directed.