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Face |
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Hyun-min is an expert at reconstructing faces from their
skulls but as his daughter is getting sicker and sicker his
job has to stand aside... until one day when a woman
shows up at his door, trying to persuade him into helping
the police with their latest case with her as his assistant.
He declines at first but when a ghost starts haunting him
he realizes what he has to do. With a serial killer on the
lose and a ghost putting terror in him, this case might not
be as simple as his previous ones.
I remember when I first saw this trailer online a while
ago along with a couple of other new Asian horror movie
trailers. Out of the 5 or 6 trailers this was the one that
seemed the least interesting. So today I get a Korean
DVD screener in my mailbox and I'm a bit sceptical about
watching it but I decide to sit down in front of my TV
anyway. The movie starts by making you jump right out of
your seat with a loud sound effect. Twenty minutes or so
into the movie I have already jumped four times and screamed
twice. It seemed as if every opportunity this movie got
to make you jump, it took. At least in the beginning.
Once we got the jumping part over the movie gets going.
Now, I really liked the way that this started with lots
of scares and then toned itself down and let the story
begin, while it's the other way around in other movies.
The story is actually really good and original. There are
a lot of twists towards the end of the movie and if you
don't stay much focused it will be almost impossible to
figure out what's going on. But as long as you stay
focused during, well, the entire movie really, I will
even have to say that this is the best horror movie since
the cult hit Ringu. I've said it before and I'm saying
it again, South Korea is the new country for horror movies.
Sang-Gon Yoo is the director if this, dare I say, masterpiece.
It wouldn't surprise me if he had just seen the South Korean
horror movie "Into The Mirror" before making this because
while story wise the movies are completely different, there
was something in the directing that felt very familiar.
You can almost tell by the directing that this movie is
from South Korea actually. It is very different, and
according to myself, much better than the average American
made movie. They just know what angles are creepy and
what angles aren't. It wasn't just the sound, atmosphere
and creepy white ghost that made me jump out of my seat,
it was particularly the way that the scenes were shot.
The acting is also top-notch, I especially admire the little
girl as she's very convincing on the hospital.
Face is a masterfully executed ghost movie and if there's
one movie that the states should remake, it's this one.
This doesn't just survive on scares, it has a solid and
interesting story as well. I hope to see something more
from Sang-Gon Yoo in the future as this is now one of
my favourite horror movies ever.
A girl is melted down with acid but it's not that gory.
It's the usual thing here, strings, piano and pan-flute
music fills the speakers just like every other Asian
horror movie these days. There are two things that differs
this from the rest though, the strange music that the
ghost seems to create ofcourse and then there's the
techno synthesizer that takes over for the piano every
now and then. Now that I loved!
Damn did this one have it all! Non-stop jump scenes for
over 20 minutes. An evil ghost dressed in white with long
black hair. A solid and interesting story and finally the
powerful team of a man and a woman. Face is a must for
any diehard Asian horror fan and also a must for anyone
else looking to be scared but beware, a weak heart might
not exactly get stronger after watching this movie!
Review By: AnthroFred
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