Hansel and Gretel

Directed by Yim Phil Sung

Starring: Chun Jeong-Myeong, Shim Eun-Kyoung, Yeong Nam-Jang

Synopsis:

Eun Soo, a young company representative is driving alone to visit his mother on a country back road in rural South Korea. After wrecking his car and concussing himself, he wanders into the moonlit forest and meets a young girl who takes him back to her family home.

Eun Soo has a pregnant wife as well as an unwell mother waiting for him at home and understandably wishes to leave fairly rapidly.

Trouble is, the forest paths keep leading him back to the house, and worse still the children’s parents disappear in the middle of the night leaving Eun Soo in charge of the three rather odd siblings Man Bok a surly teenage boy, Young Hee the girl he met in the forest, and Jung Soon the little sister. Stuck in the isolated cottage with no way of contacting the outside world Eun Soo begins to notice more and more strange things about the children’s lives. Odd noises begin to drift down from the attic.

Then arrival of a smooth talking Church minister and his female companion, also stranded on the road, sets a series of extremely disturbing events in motion and everyone’s lives are altered forever.



Review.

Hansel and Gretel is a captivating film from the very beginning. Eun Soo’s car crash is the catapult which launches us into the forest of all fairytale nightmares. It is ancient, twisted and dark and throughout the film it’s presence broods outside the doors and windows and traps everybody within.

Ryu Seong Hee’s production design creates a sensory feast. In the heart of the forest the children’s home is exactly what a newly imagined Gingerbread house should look like. It’s alive with toys and games. The light’s sparkle and shine. It’s a beautiful welcoming homestead where the tables are groaning with food.

Look closer. The clocks have no hands, the pictures are endlessly repeated bunnies and deer and other childish totems. The food piled on the tables consists purely of cakes and sweets. The dream is fragile and Eun Soo quickly starts to see the edges unravel.

A trip to the labyrinthine attic was a particular highpoint, how refreshing to feel terrified when one is not in a Cellar, and places which defy the normal laws of physics always serve to creep me out.

Yim Phil Sung’s direction is meticulous. Carefully constructed tableaux tell a visual story which perfectly compliments the picture book pages used to fill in the blanks from the past, or illustrate the children’s grisly brand of retribution against the ‘grownups’ who have wronged them.

Supernatural movies always work best when built slowly. Working with a talented engaging cast, notably some very able children, Yim Phil Sung starts small. In early scenes the children’s ‘Parents’ are a study in contained terror. A lone bead of sweat trickling down a cheek, a fixed smile, a hand endlessly adjusting hair, a leg twitching. All these minute details are telling us to be afraid of the children, but unable to tell us why.

We find out though, one wrong note at a time until the fairytale dream is completely shattered and Eun Soo finally knows what is really happening and why.

The steadily disintegrating state of Eun Soo’s sanity and the dream façade of the children’s life is wonderfully illustrated by Kim Ji-Yong, whose cinematography gradually pulls down the brash colours of the start in favour of a decaying sepia pallet counterpointed by smouldering yellows and the odd splash of crimson on pallid skin. Throughout the final third of the movie shadows become almost tangible as the darkness of the narrative is brought to life.

The major characters of the story are all well envisioned and skilfully brought to life. The boy Man Bok (A masterful Eon Won Jae) is in equal parts menacing and lost, Young Hee (Subtle and complex performance from Shim Eun- Keoung) sleepwalks and gives every impression she is dreaming everything around her and does not want to wake up. Jung Soon (Magnificently portrayed by Jin Jee Hee) the little sister is a horrible realisation of what happens when children have the power to do anything they want to.

This film does bring to mind several other attempts at the classic fairy tale on screen. Anyone who has seen ‘A Company of Wolves’ or ‘Legend’ will find similarities in the forest and the oddities found inside. Although this forest, in my opinion is much, much more sinister. The army of toys with seemingly lives of their own, call to mind the abduction scene from Close Encounters, or JF Sebastien’s apartment in Blade Runner. And it all works very well to heighten the unease.

The soundtrack complements the theme perfectly, a charming fairytale theme which plunges into dischord seamlessly when the bad stuff happens.

Verdict:

This film was delightfully eerie to watch. It is well paced and rattles along smoothly. The dialogue comes over perfectly due, I suspect, to a clear and quite minimal script, and more importantly to good subtitling. I am glad to have been able to watch and review a fine piece of Supernatural storytelling.

Features on the DVD will include a making of Featurette and an interview with Ryu Seong-Hee the Production designer who built the spooky world in the forest.

8 Out of 10 (Sulaco)