Princess Aurora Limited Edition DTS DVD Region 3

Princess Aurora stars the versatile Uhm Jung Hwa as Jung Soon Jung, a woman bent on vengeance. Simply put, there is a list of people Soon Jung needs dead, and she's going to make them dead one way or another. The film opens innocuous enough, with imported car saleswoman Soon Jung driving to the mall, where a happenstance meeting inside a bathroom brings her face to face with an abusive trophy wife. No sooner does the woman retire into a bathroom stall does Soon Jung strike, claiming her first victim in a sudden and shocking splash of blood and violence. Enter detectives Oh (Moon Sung Keun) and Jung (Kwon Oh Jung), two men on opposite ends of the spectrum. Jung is young and ready to take on the world; Oh is older, and ready to retire and become a pastor.

Slowly but surely, we become aware of a connection between Detective Oh and Soon Jung, a relationship irrevocably altered by a shared traumatic experience exactly one year ago. While Oh has turned to religion for salvation, Soon Jung is not so willing to let go. This past relationship continues to haunt Oh as the bodies pile up, and it becomes increasingly evident that his ex-wife is the culprit. Will Oh use his knowledge of Soon Jung to catch her, or will she use it to elude him? And does she even want to be caught? By the amount of clues she leaves behind, including a Princess Aurora sticker at every killing, we're not so sure.

To forcibly keep the audience in suspense, writer/director Pang Eun Jin cheats by refusing to tell us the identities of the men and women on Soon Jung's death list. The answers are eventually revealed in the film's final 20 minutes (including a plot twist that should be readily obvious to the more observant in the audience). For the longest time, we are left to wonder why Soon Jung is targeting these seemingly disparate strangers (a kept woman, an abusive step-mom, a ne'er-do-well son). Pang's decision pays off, as we wait with bated breath for the answers. Through it all, we continue to accept that Soon Jung is justified in her killings, if only because she just doesn't look…insane.

What keeps Princess Aurora from slipping into cheap exploitation is measured direction by first-time writer/director Pang (301/302), a former actress who shows good command of the cinematic tools at her disposal. The film's only real shocking moment comes early, when Soon Jung ferociously pounces on her victim in the mall bathroom. And while the rest of Princess Aurora is nowhere near as bloody, that initial burst of shocking violence sets the stage for the movie's unpredictable nature, as if Pang is telling us that anyone, at anytime, can become one of Soon Jung's victims. The fact that Pang refuses to give us quick answers as to why these people are being targeted makes the mystery all the more engaging.

The primary reason why Princess Aurora works as well as it does is because of the tour de force performance of star Uhm Jung Hwa (Mr. Handy), who continues to prove herself an amazingly versatile actress. Uhm's Soon Jung is a woman filled with rage, but you wouldn't know it to look at her. The exterior façade that she allows others to see in public hides seething anger, uncontrolled violence, and most of all, a shattered soul. She is, without question, a destroyed woman trying to take as many of those responsible with her as she can before the inevitable end. All the credit in the world goes to Uhm Jung Hwa, who singularly carries, as well as makes Princess Aurora more than the material.

This brings us to the script, which is excellent when it focuses entirely on Soon Jung's quest, but falters when it has to bring others into Soon Jung's world. There's Tube star Kwon Oh Jung's Detective Jung, who is initially written to be a major part of the story, but ends up doing little more than running about in the background. Also open to debate is the South Korean police's seemingly ludicrous policies. When it's revealed that Oh is the ex-husband of a serial killer still at large, Oh's superiors have no qualms about letting him remain an active participant in the investigation. And then there's a gratuitous sex scene early in the film that seems to be entirely devoid of any purpose whatsoever.

Overall, Princess Aurora is one of the better cop thrillers you'll find in South Korea at the moment. It's not a procedural in the traditional sense, and if anything the film seems clueless about real police work. Not that it matters, because writer/director Pang has fashioned a fantastic debut film buoyed by a powerhouse performance from her star Uhm as the film's serial killer with a cause. In a year of mediocre romantic comedies, derivative ghost stories, and tedious melodramas, it's a wonder the Koreans still know how to make such an effective and entertaining thriller, much less two in the same year - Pang's Princess Aurora and Park's Sympathy for Lady Vengeance.

Movie Grade: 4/5

Review by Nix - BeyondHollywood.com