H (2002)

User Rating:

5.8/10   

Director:

Jong-hyuk Lee

Writer:

Jong-hyuk Lee (writer)

Release Date:

27 December 2002 (South Korea)

Genre:

Drama | Mystery | Thriller

Tagline:

An Intelligent Thriller

Plot:

A serial killer named Shin-Hyun gives himself up to police. He confesses to committing a series of particularly...

Plot Keywords:

Detective | Police | Serial Killer | One Letter Title | Multiple Personality

Awards:

1 nomination

Cast

Jung-ah Yum	...	Detective Kim Mi Yun
Jin-hee Ji	...	Detective Kang Tae Hyun
Ji-ru Sung	...	Detective Park
Seung-woo Cho	...	Shin Hyun
Woong-ki Min	...	Choi Young Jin
Yong-soo Park	...	Chief Jang
Hyuk Poong Kwon	...	Captain Lee
Eol Lee	...	Detective Han Jung-Woo
In-kwon Kim	...	Huh Young-Taek
Kil-soo Park	...	Bae Yong-Man
Sun-kyung Kim	...	Dr. Chu Kyung-sook
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Bu-seon Kim
Roe-ha Kim
Seon-mi Yeon

Also Known As:

Murmurs (South Korea) (working title)

MPAA:

Rated R for strong bloody violence and language.

Runtime:

106 min

Country:

South Korea

Language:

Korean

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Certification:

Netherlands:16 | Singapore:NC-16 | Finland:K-18 | Japan:R-15 | South Korea:15 | Sweden:15 | Germany:18 | Hong Kong:IIB | USA:R | UK:18

Filming Locations:

Busan, South Korea

Company:

KTB Entertainment Corporation

Trivia:

In Korea, "going to the beach" is synonymous with committing suicide.

Goofs:

Continuity: In the club scene where Young-taek kills the lesbian, he grips her head below her chin and starts cutting her ear. In the next shot, a close up, his grip on her face and the knife has suddenly changed and he hasn't started to cut her ear off yet.

Terrible

I love Korean and other Asian films, and I watch a lot of them. But this is one that I wish I hadn't bothered with.

As per usual, the visuals in this film are fantastic, and the editing tries to be as distorting and uncomfortable as that in 'A Tale of Two Sisters' and other successful types. However, the failure of this film remains in some of the most overreacted acting and clichéd story plot elements that quite shamelessly steals from thrillers such as 'Silence of the Lambs'.

The male lead is so desperate for an Oscar he shakes in anger or fear in almost every scene that involves conversations - most particularly the interrogation scenes involving an older case killer (Hannible Lector wannabe) who is more homosexual-coming-onto-a-straight-man scary instead of him being a psychological mind F-ing threat.

The female lead is also too detached most of the time and the film gives very little back story to sympathise for and nothing lovable about her to convince us to root for her.

Further more, the music and sound effects make some of the most dire and unoriginal attempts to make things more sinister. Whenever the filmmakers want you shaken or disturbed they'll add in those sharp violin or metal scrape sounds to bring out emotion to the audience, but only making scenes seem more cheesy, camp or like a parody of the genre as well as being placed so predictably I could hear them in my head seconds before they happened.

There are television murder mystery thrillers with more maturity and involvement in this. I seriously suggest looking somewhere else.