Uninvited

I got the DVD for the Uninvited not knowing what to expect, Asian Horror movies are usually very different one from another. There are movies that go heavy on the blood and others than go heavy on the Drama; The Uninvited falls in the latter, just like other movies like Dark Water or Two Sisters. The movie is about a man named Jung-won who is an Interior designer. One day he falls asleep in the subway and he must hurry out before the doors close, but outside he notices that the two kids are still on the train, and he does nothing. The next day he hears on the radio that the 2 children were dead and suddenly he starts seen the kids sitting at his dinner table.

He ignores what is happening to him, probably thinking is the shock of watching the children dead in the train until the day he meets a woman named Yun who suffers from narcolepsy, so he takes her to his home when she loses conscious in his car, and just when she is leaving she tell him to put his kids in bed, so now Jung-won is not the only one seeing the dead kids.

From there Yun helps Jung-won find the gruesome secrets buried in his past, but he is not the only one with a dark past.

The movie has some very shocking scenes that play very well. Both lead actors, Shin-yang Park and Ji-hyun Jun (most known for her part in the romantic comedy (My Sassy Girl") did a fantastic job playing these troubled characters. The cinematography is superb, there were some scenes were I was very impressed.

The US DVD from Panik House is great, from the cover to the extras. There are 2 Audio Commentaries, one in English, which is very informative about the Korean culture and Cinema and another one in Spanish. It has a Making Off, Interviews with the lead Actors, a story boards/scenes comparisons, and other need stuff like a condensed version of the movie. The DVD also comes with a sticker of the cover.

I really recommend this movie to everyone, is not a simple horror movie but a complex drama with some very shocking moments.

"The Uninvited," is not your usual or typical horror film riddled with the usual gorefest cliches common in too many horror films. This film is a deeper, and more methodically paced film dealing with the human pysche. And more importantly, the horrors that we carry with us: In this case, the films main protagonist Jeong-won (Shin-yang Park). If you have the patience for a very complex, and slowly paced film, then this film will reward you. As a word of caution however, it is not for those whose idea of a horror film [if we can call it that] is one with gratuitous gore from beginning to end. I thought that this was a very good film. However, it may not appeal to all viewers. The film is rather slow-paced, and ambiguous.

Furthermore, the films usuage of ghosts and other supernatural occurances are used in order to advance the films main theme: The inner pysche of the films main protagonist, Jeong-won (Shin-yang Park). And I believe the film succeeded magnificantly in this respect. The film begins with Jeong-wan, an architect, who has no recollection or memories of his childhood. Returning from home one day on the subway, he notices two young girls who are sitting next to him. As he reaches the end of the line, he notices the two girls are still there. Thinking nothing further about it, he returns home. However, he later learns that the two girls were dead. Thus begins a very complex film. Jeong-wan's life begins to change dramatically, as he begins to see the two dead children. Whether or not this is in his head, or real is only part of the films message: For it is mainly the films ambiguity which leave the viewer to his or her imagination.

Finally, while the film is not so much about horror, per se, as much as the horror of trauma and loss, there are still some disturbing images which are haunting in their themes. As the film moves forward, Jeong-wan meets a woman named Yeon (Ji-hyun Jun), who is a narcoleptic. She is also a witness in an infant murder case, who can also see these two childrens ghosts. They both try to unravel this mystery of the children, and in doing so unlock Jeong-wan's shocking past. I don't want to give away too much of the film, however, if you sit back and allow the films slow and nuanced pace to arrive at the conclusion, you might find you like this film. However, it's not a happy one with a neat tidy conclusion. I recommend you rent the film first to see it this is a film you would like to have in your cinema collection. The film does take patience. Recommended. [Stars: 4.5]

The Uninvited (Su-yeon Lee, 2003)

The Uninvited is being marketed here in America as just another Asian horror flick, which is a disservice not only to the film, but both to the Asian horror film audience in America and the audience that would get far more out of it. Not to say there isn't crossover; I rented it expecting another Asian horror flick and got, well, The Uninvited, which while it contains some supernatural elements (and the rather extreme ways of depicting them of which the Japanese are so fond), is a breathtaking psychological drama about the lengths a person will go to to defend himself from the past, and the devastation that can occur when those defenses are broken down.

While the main character is Jeong-won (Shin-yang Park), it's hard to really define anyone as a "main" character here. He (and his story) gets the most screen time, but everything going on around him is just as important, even the part to which he and his story are tangential. In any case, Jeong-won is an interior designer with a problem--a nagging, overbearing fiancée, Hee-eun (Seon Yu). One night, he falls asleep on the train home, and rides it to the last stop by accident. As the train pulls off into the yard for the night, from the platform he sees that two small children are still on the train, seemingly asleep. The next morning, he finds out they were found there dead, and almost immediately after has a work-related accident that causes head trauma. That night, he sees the two dead girls sitting at the new table his fiancée just bought.

And that's just the first five minutes. It's also the synopsis most people will give (everyone stops there because we run out of space for it), and that's why everyone thinks it's a ghost story. Oh, but there's much more--an alleged psychic, a murder trial, a poor priest who may or may not be who he says he is, rumors of infidelity, a mental clinic, and it just keeps going on and on. There's no way to give a full synopsis of this movie in less than a thousand words; there's simply too much to it, and it's all quite wonderful.

The pace is psychological-drama pace, not horror pace. You should be expecting things to move slowly. It is, after all, over two hours long, which gives us enough time to absorb all the different threads Su-yeon Lee wove into the screenplay. There's a lot going on here; this is a movie that requires you to pay attention to it, but the payoff is in the characters, the way they interact, Lee's bravery in not tying up all the loose ends (the final scene is just perfect, even if we're probably in greater suspense about the scene that would come just after than we have been at any point in the movie), and all the other little things that make The Uninvited one of the best movies I've seen this year. ****