As unlikely as it may seem for a thriller/horror flick, Sorum is a heartbreaking study of love's fragility, set in a crumbling tenement with a dark past in room 504, into which moves the protagonist, a 30-ish orphan taxi-cab driver, still seeking the maternal affection only haltingly admitted in his transient life. He meets a troubled neighbor, an externally tough, but vulnerable worker at a nearby 7-11, and bonds with her by helping dispose of the abusive husband who dies during one of his daily bouts of beating. This shared secret, however, is not the only secret uniting the two lovers and the other tenants of the apartments, inescapably implicated in the unfolding of the barely concealed tragedies that lie at the broken but eerily (if cruelly and perversely) nurturing heart of 504. Incisive psychologically knowing acting, supernatural forebodings, and a progressively tension building mystery are economically and seamlessly integrated in a profoundly affective portrait of the redemptive potential and ghostly possibility of abyss attending our attempts to break into family intimacy.

Less a ghost story, then a quietly chilling character study, this Korien film about Sun-yeong, a young taxi driver who move into room 504 of a dilapidated, run-down apartment building, where two tragedies have occurred, one thirty years in the past, the other much more recent (the previous owner committed suicide), and befriending an elderly writer as well as a abused middle aged woman, survives on the psychological horror, great cinematography, and good characterization, more than outright scares and gore. More for the intellectual art-house crowd than those interested in 'J-horror'. And while one can surely see where the film is going, you still find your breath tightening when you get there. Not a film for everyone, but I liked it well enough for what it is and didn't view it expecting it to be what is isn't.My Grade: C+

I've never seen anything quite like this picture before - it's an amalgamation of suspense, supernatural, and social realist genres and is well worth seeking out.The film chronicles the various goings-on in the lives of several tenants of a crumbling Seoul highrise, primarily through the eyes of a new leasee who becomes caught up in their morally compromised existences. As the film progresses, we come to realize we know less about our narrator then we thought, and that he may be as capable of evil as the other characters.To sum this film up is difficult, and I haven't even scratched the surface here. It's beautifully written, acted, and directed (by a first-time helmer no less!) and worthy of attention.

************CONTAINS SPOILERS**************Sorum has been advertised as ghost story and on the surface that is what it appears to be. But there is more about it and that is what makes this film so interesting. Other categories such as social drama or psycho thriller could also be applied to it. As a social comment on parent's behaviour works with some difficulties but it's a nice try. It is economically but brilliantly shot. Somebody has pointed out some similarities with the Sixth Sense, and probably the story is not the most original of all (somehow Barton Fink popped into my mind for its use of the building). Still it has really nice touches such as the story being the source of a novel in progress or is it the other way round?, exposing the dark side of every single character in the film. The supposed hero, the taxi driver, appearing to be the most sane and innocent of all of the characters who just had the misfortune of stumbling across a weird group of characters reveals itself as the craziest of all. The interconnections between the characters might have seemed a bit confusing specially the ending which many couldn't grasped (and here avoids the ultimate flaw of the Sixth Sense which makes use of flashbacks for everybody in the audience to understand what happened to Willis). Not really a scary film I still felt quite shocked by the climatic scene where the taxi driver kills his, yet unknown, half-sister by struggling her with the scarf she bought for him. A scene that under my view is the best of the film and moves this film away from the usual trickery of ghost movies. It is a one shot sequence played in hotel room which follows the development of a row between both characters that ends tragically. The discovery he makes later about his sister and the possibility he might be a ghost or not a real person at all or character from a novel has this sense of futility and not being able to control your own fate that makes the film a gripping experience. A reoccurring motif is water, in the shape of rain, lake, shower, toilet sink and functions not just a substitute for the lack of music in the film but also to create tension as when the beaten up woman opens the wardrobe, where we later discovered her son died suffocated, while we can still hear the sound of water going down a half blocked pipe.