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After not
hearing from guard post 506 for a while, a
group of soldiers are sent out to find out what's
going on. Upon entering the post, they soon realize
that finding survivors may be tricky as there are dead
bodies everywhere. Fortunately they do find one survivor
however, but he doesn't seem to be very keen on telling
them exactly what went down at the guard post. It
doesn't really matter though as they'll find out soon
enough when it starts to happen to them as well.
Back in 2004, when South Korea was at the peak of
success with their ghost stories, Su-chang Kong
dared to be different and make an action-horror flick
without any long-haired ghost girls in it. Unfortunately,
it was utterly mediocre and had a tendency to drag.
Now he's back, and after several problems during the
production of this film, The Guard Post (aka GP506)
is finally here. Every year South Korea produces several
horror flicks but this year has been rather quiet with
only two horror releases, perhaps that is why this
made a decent amount of money at the local box-office
because it certainly isn't a big improvement on last
years box-office flops, nevertheless, it is a small
improvement over Kong's last horror movie.
Believe it or not, but the film that I just watched
isn't a ghost flick. I know, right? No wonder it had
problems finding financing considering that it's a
Korean movie. Anyway, the villain in here is actually
a nasty virus that turns people into raving maniacs.
Now this may all sound very exciting but when the
movie is two hours long and the story-telling is
questionable, it gets a bit tedious. I truly believe
that Kong had a good thing going here, in the early
development stages anyway, the thing that really
ruins it is the confusing and disorienting way that
the story is told. It jumps back and forth in time
without any warning or notion, it's got too many
characters and it's difficult to keep track of all of
them, it doesn't answer the questions you really wanted
answered and it spends way too much time focusing on
things that we really couldn't care less about.
However, GP506 still manages to keep you moderately
entertained for 2 hours worth and that's not something
that you should take for granted these days. It's
certainly a very stylish film (like most South Korean
horror flicks) and it actually made me wonder if
perhaps there is a chance that South Korea could make
a comeback in the horror genre. Sure, it's not a
flawless movie, far from it, but it's got some really
strong moments and there is a well-crafted story to
be found in here. If you were a fan of R-Point, I'm
sure that you will like GP506 as well since this is a
small improvement, and you can say what you will about
Korean horror movies but one thing's for certain, no
matter how crappy a South Korean horror flick is, it's
always watchable simply for the stunning cinematography.
We get an arm ripped off, brains blown out, severed
body parts, gory corpses. This was actually pretty
damn gory believe it or not.
Beautiful strings, the Korean's sure know how to make
a flawless soundtrack. Certainly works in favour of
the movie and creates a very nice atmosphere.
While it won't win any prizes for originality, it's
still a pretty decent horror-thriller. Had the story
been more comprehensive and not so confusing, this
could have been a great horror flick, but I think that
they should've shortened it down to 90 minutes. Worth
a watch but you'll probably only watch it once.
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