Great start, good concept, good ideas, good looks, good production values, some nice scenes... All totally wasted because of a deeply stupid plot and a very bad script. Haunters looks very pale and small compared to its clear reference, Shyamalan's Unbreakable.Here we have a similar powerful and unaware hero whose main strategy seems to be getting mad and yelling at the bad guy for him to stop being a bad ass at once. Really. Moreover, he doesn't seem to quite understand that the bad guy can control other people and make them do whatever he wants. So our smart hero keeps confronting him openly and always around many people, never armed and never with the slightest shadow of a plan.The bad guy, in turn, doesn't seem to understand that he can kill the hero very easily at any moment if he calms down for a moment and thinks a little bit. Or just leave to another country, for god sake. He has the power to control everybody and he can get all the money and anything he wants.It would take some time to go through all the plot holes, inconsistencies and silly moments of this wreck but is not worth my time or yours.Watch it at your own risk and with some warnings: don't expect any of the characters (much less the main ones) to make any sense on their actions. Also, be aware that the plot is thin as paper and just keeps repeating itself for most part of the movie.Could have been good, but is not. And no, "the special korean way of film-making" is not an excuse. If you want solid, top notch korean cinema, try Oldeuboi for instance.
... View MoreUnbreakable - that was the movie. Kind of like that understated, more realistic view of how people with super powers deals with their 'gift'.The thing I find about Korean movies is, each is so focus on what each one wants to be, wants to tell, in such specific ways. You can say, the confidence is never an issue. It's overflowing in fact. And never murky who is good, who is bad. It's almost always entertainment. Unlike too many Hollywood these days, either over the top action, or too thought provokingly murky. No middle ground, no thriller any more.This is no exception. 2 guys, one can control minds, the other basically heals himself endlessly. One good, one bad. And there are at least 3 memorable scenes. One at the money shop, one at the subway, one during the end game.The comic relief is just a tad too obvious and see it coming. There are a few transitions moments with some information left out .. as in how did the plot get from here to there. Otherwise, I'm good with the way it holds up.
... View MoreCho-In (Gang Dong-won) has a remarkable ability: he can control the actions of anybody that he can see, up to and including large crowds. He has no friends, or family for that matter – in fact, as a child he forced his father to kill himself and almost killed his mother too – but he doesn't need people, except to have them do his bidding such as giving him all the money at a place of business. He has no fear, because nobody ever remembers him or what happened when he had control over them. Kyu-nam (Ko Soo), on the other hand, has supernatural powers of healing, which he needs as he seems to get into physical jeopardy fairly often. He and his two friends Bubba and Al, from Ghana and Turkey respectively, live life joyously although they are poor and work in a junkyard. After an accident, Kyu-nam is fired, but finds himself a new job in a family-run pawn shop, a place he very much likes. That is, until Cho-In comes along to take money from the old man who runs the place; and Cho-In is himself in for a shock when he discovers Kyu-nam, who turns out to be the one person Cho-In cannot control with his mind. As these two characters interact, the deadly body count starts rising, and it seems there's no way to stop more carnage, for Cho-In is determined to erase Kyu-nam from existence, seeing him as a threat, and Kyu-nam is damn near indestructible....This is one of those wonderful Korean movies that has a bit of everything: it's really funny, really sad, full of horrific deaths and full of loving exchanges. Oh, and it tells a really good anti-superhero tale, too. One thing I've rarely if ever seen in Korean films is non-Korean (or non-Asian) actors, so it was a special treat to see a Black man from Ghana and a Caucasian from Turkey – unfortunately, I couldn't discover the actors' names, but they were both excellent sidekicks. But the show belongs to Ko Soo and Gang Dong-won, as two men with inexplicable abilities doomed to be enemies to the death; recommended.
... View MoreThe plot of the film has a young man with the power to manipulate people as if they were puppets with his eyes coming into conflict with another young man with miraculous healing properties that some how makes him immune from control. The conflict starts when an attempt by the villain to get money from the pawn shop where our hero works goes wrong. The remaining 90 minutes of screen time is a chase that really doesn't make a heck of a lot of sense.With plot holes you could drop a planet through, illogical moves that defy rational thought and lack of excitement that is amazing, this film is a well made stinker.Yes it looks good...Yes it has a few sequences that are great (The 1991 opening for example)......but there is no real reason for the conflict. Worse we have a hero who's almost every move causes some one to die or get hurt.I can't think of a reason for any of it to happen...especially as it goes down here.I like the look, I like the ideas, I hate the script.I'm really torn about whether to rip this film apart or not- hence the lack of plot details... but I don't have the time to truly rip this films logic and get to bed at a reasonable hour.Besides I don't think you'll be foolish like me and buy a 30 buck import of the film- odds are you'll pay say 10 bucks and see it in a theater and maybe walk out... I stupidly stayed to the bitter end.
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