Ryoo Seong-hee (류성희)

"Hansel and Gretel" ends the year on a high

2008/01/02 | Source | Permalink |

Director Lim Pil-seong assembled a fine cast and a great team of experts, the result is a well-crafted film, finely calibrated on every level.

Production designer Ryoo Seong-hee's ("The Host", "A Bittersweet Life", "Memories of Murder", "Old Boy") fairy tale world is beautifully shot by director of photography KIM Jee-yong ("A Bittersweet Life"). The visual style is at times complemented and at times contrasted by the music of LEE Byeong-woo ("The King and the Clown", "Voice of Murderer"). The result is a warm fairy tale feeling; but some unsettling events are foreboded, tangibly in the air.

The palpable darker edges create tension early on and keep the viewers captivated. The child actors admirably sensed the particular atmosphere of the film and their awareness – in combination with acting skills – is another highly beneficial factor to the collaborative achievement that is "Hansel and Gretel".

The oldest of the three children is a boy with paranormal abilities played by E...| More

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Cruel Innocence

2007/12/27 | Source | Permalink |

The production company, as well as its director Lim Pil-seong ("Antarctic Journal", 2004), was concerned that the movie was "not scary enough", and kept emphasizing that the movie does not belong to the "horror" genre.

They are right. The move due to open today, "Hansel and Gretel", has "sadness" as its main theme. The movie is a cruel fairy tale and shows a role reversal unlike the original tale of Hansel and Gretel that we know. In the original tale, a witch captured the children, while the movie is about children spooking grown-ups.

Eun-soo (Cheon Jeong-myeong) wakes up after getting lost in the middle of a forest. He comes across a girl named Yeong-hee (Sim Eun-kyeong) and she takes him to a house where her older brother Manbok (Eun Won-jae) and younger sister Jeong-soon (Jin Ji-hee) live along with their parents. He arrives in a picturesque house but there is something strange about the family. He cannot find his way out of the forest, even though he tries hard to.

Ryoo S...| More

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'Hansel and Gretel' Loses Focus

2007/12/27 | Source | Permalink |

By Lee Hyo-won
Staff Reporter

Up and coming director Lim Pil-seong's latest work "Hansel and Gretel" is a sinister tale, which gets its inspiration from those classic children's stories with a dark twist. Here it is adults rather than children who become lost in the woods.

But the movie itself loses orientation and trails off course. There are no redeeming factors ― no breadcrumbs ― to this "brutal fairytale", which stops short of being an allegorical oxymoron.

Eun-su (Cheon Jeong-myeong), while arguing over the phone with his girlfriend, has a car accident in the middle of nowhere. Deep in the heart of a forest, he finds sanctuary in a beautiful house, where a charming family of five greets him.

Here, rooms are filled with a myriad of colorful toys, and sumptuous three-tier cakes and other cavity-causing sweets are served for breakfast. But that's one thing to imagine and another to actually live through, especially when you cannot get away from it ― eve...| More

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