What's the saying? "If it ain't broke..." (yada, yada)...
Since the respective releases of each of the unholy trinity comprised of Ringu, The Eye, and Ju-on, mainstream Asian horror movies have, quite frequently, veered into very familiar territory. Take one old, dark house (or similar location), add a particular piece of technology (VCR's, Phones, etc), sprinkle liberally with one (or more) creepy kids and/or long-haired, slithering, shadowy female figures, cast a perky heroine, and voila...you've got a recipe for box-office success (in Asia, at least). These themes have been visited, to varying results, so often that, in the view of this reviewer, the mainstream Asian horror film is starting to...almost literally...cannibalize itself. Don't get me wrong...the death knell hasn't sounded quite yet. Apparently, there's still a bit more creepy goodness to be squeezed out of these concepts. Case in point, Phone, from hot-shot Korean director Ahn Byong Ki, reworks those oft-explored ideas, with somewhat mixed but nevertheless highly-effective results.
The synopsis...
Phone begins with our perky heroine Ji-Won (Ji-won Ha), who is apparently a journalist of some sort, shortly after the release of a story on which she was working. The story, it seems, was some sort of undefined "sex scandal", and the implicated person or persons are none too happy about having their names dragged through the proverbial dirt. So, Ji-Won starts getting harrassing phone calls on her cellular phone. These calls are, we assume, from the stalker/sex-scandal subject, but the nature of the phone calls is left purposefully vague. We don't hear anything in particular, just some creepy sounds and static. In an effort to escape harrassment, Ji-Won takes a sabbatical at a house owned but not lived in by her equally perky best friend Ho-Jeong (Yu-mi Kim) and her husband Chang-hoon (Woo-jae Choi). Here's where it gets confusing. Ho-Jeong, apparently unable to conceive on her own, accepted eggs donated by Ji-Won, and thus gave birth to a daughter named Yeong-Ju (Seo-woo Eun). Yeong-Ju...about six years old when the story begins...looks up to Ji-Won as an "aunt". Well, Ji-Won moves into the empty (but lavish) house to start her new life. Along with the borrowed house, Ji-won gets a new cell phone, and a new number to deter more harrassing calls. Of course, this wouldn't be a horror movie if all of Ji-Won's efforts actually worked...quite the contrary, in fact. Soon, not only are the calls starting again, more eerily than before, but Ji-Won also starts hearing someone playing Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata" at all hours of the night. After Yeong-Ju inadvertently answers one of her "aunt's" calls, the little girl starts acting out in increasingly erratic, disturbing ways, and develops what, on the surface, appears to be an unnatural attraction to / obsession with her own father. Meanwhile, Ji-Won starts to, in true Asian Horror Heroine form, investigate the strange goings-on. Will she find out what's behind the freaky phone calls she's receiving? Will Yeong-Ju go completely off the deep end like little Danny Torrance in The Shining? Will there be the obligatory creepy schoolgirls involved? Well, as the French would say, O, mais oui!...
Unfortunately, that's all I can give away without ruining the flick for you. Phone is a movie that hinges on suspension of disbelief, and the audience's ability to forget about the logical inconsistencies inherent to its plot. Like many similar films, the plot here is quite complex. All of the characters are so deeply intertwined that you really have to pay attention to what's going on, or you might just miss something. The problem here is that Phone is so remarkably similar in so many ways to its predecessors that one gets the feeling that this flick only works because of its inherent familiarity. There's a lot to be said for the strength of a basic concept working for many (many) different movies, but to paraphrase Tolkien, it's like too little butter spread over too much toast. Phone desperately tries to be refreshing and original, but it doesn't quite hit the mark. I will say that the film focuses on the "human" aspect of its story more than many other similar films. In fact, it could be said that Phone's characters are more deeply-drawn and heartfelt than those in either Ringu or Ju-On...where the characterizations leaned toward being drawn far too broadly. Ji-Won and Yeong-Ju, in particular, get the full characterization treatment here. They are interesting characters, and they are multi-dimensional characters, to boot. Furthermore, Yeong-Ju's parents (whom end up being far more important to the story than one would initially guess) are a fairly compelling illustration of a modern Korean "couple in trouble". So, the characterizations are spot on, and the performances are uniformly outstanding. Of particular note is Seo-woo Eun as Yeong-Ju, who gives one of the best child performances this reviewer has had the pleasure of witnessing. Not since Mary Badham as "Scout" in To Kill a Mockingbird has a girl so young put in such a nuanced, complex, and ultimately touching performance. Plus, she has the precocious ability to scare the bejeezus out of the viewer. She's got the whole concept of the "Kubrick stare" down pat. Great work, kid...
Another aspect of Phone that works, and works well, is the visual aesthetic. Like many of the Korean "new wave" of films, Phone treats its audience to a palpable and eerie atmosphere, accomplished through careful, measured camerawork and effective lighting and set design. Earlier, I made reference to Kubrick, and the whole Kubrick-vibe extends far beyond the performances, here. Every scene has an almost painterly feeling, and it's clear that Ahn Byong Ki and company were very careful and scientific when approaching the whole look of their film. There is no doubt that Phone is a beautiful film to look at, even though what we see often makes no clear sense. I can only hope that Byong Ki will go on to make similarly gorgeous films that actually have more of a point to them, or that at least explore elements more original than are explored in Phone. That's not to say that I didn't like Phone...it does what it does quite well. The only problem is that one must question why it's being done again...and again...and again. I know, I know...you curmudgeons out there will be shouting, "But chaos731...the themes of the black-haired female ghost are a time-honored tradition in many Asian cultures...a tradition that stretches back literally hundreds of years! Of course they're going to make lots of movies about it!" Well, that may very well be true, but that doesn't mean that we can't have our time-honored themes presented to us more originally. I'm all for tradition...I'm all for genre...but there's a point where we've got to move on, thematically, and try our hands at new, fresh themes, lest our minds become jaded to these recurring images. I'm just sayin'...
This DVD presentation of Phone from Tartan...part of their "Asia Extreme" series...is pretty much top-notch, though it's a bit lacking in the "features" department. Technically, the disc is gorgeous: a very nice anamorphic widescreen presentation, which is (for the most part) clear and sharp. There are, however, quite a few digital artifacts visible in heavily shadowed areas and scenes, but it's never too distracting. A bit more care next time, OK fellas? The sound, on the other hand, leaves nothing to be desired. There are two pristine 5.1 surround tracks; one Dolby Digital and the other in DTS, and both in Korean. The dynamice sound effects in Phone are quite nice, and really add to the overall ambience of the film, so it's nice to hear them coming from all directions! The subtitles are in English, and are removable. On the extra features-front, we have the bog-standard behind-the-scenes footage and deleted scenes that, while nice to watch, don't really offer any new perspective or character development. There are also a series of cast and crew interview segments, with English subs, that are pretty interesting to watch, but are really just average in the long run. Finally, we come to my major issue with this presentation; the commentary track. The box (and originally, the Tartan website) touts the inclusion of a feature commentary. Don't be fooled, people! What we get here is just a scene-specific "commentary" for a few scenes by itsy-bitsy star Seo-woo Eun, where she sheds...ahem...a little light on some of her more demanding sequences. While this is a cute little feature, it's hardly the commentary track that we would have expected. So, caveat emptor regarding that feature. Other than that, we've got the standard trailers and TV spots, and that pretty much wraps it up. Perhaps this reviewer has become somewhat jaded by feature-laden releases, but I'm a bit disappointed by what we're offered here. Oh, well. All told, it's a nice release for a good film, and certainly worth the twenty bucks. Notice I said, "Good film", and not "Great film"...that's the lasting impression I'll take away from Phone...that it's a noble attempt to bring new ingredients to an over-cooked subgenre. It's got its moments, and it can be as creepy as fuck, but in the grand scheme of things, I think it will go down as a stylish, reasonably exciting "also ran" alongside the likes of The Eye and Ju-On. I always try to rate a film on its own relative merits, but in this case, Phone just isn't different enough from its cinematic brethren to get too unduly excited about. Still, it's a highly recommended little thriller, and it's about as nice a release as one could expect.
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The Atrocities Cinema Scoreboard
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c o n t a c t / i n f o
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