Uri dongne (2007)

Director:

Gil-yeong Jeong

Release Date:

29 November 2007 (South Korea)

Genre:

Crime | Mystery | Thriller

Plot:

Plot Keywords:

Insanity | Aunt Nephew Relationship | Picture Of Suspect | Pistol | Police Station

Awards:

2 nominations

Cast

Soo-hwan Jeon
Seon-gyun Lee	...	Jae-shin
Man-seok Oh	...	Gyeong-ju
Deok-Hwan Ryu	...	Hyo-i

Also Known As:

Our Town (International: English title)

Runtime:

South Korea:112 min

Country:

South Korea

Language:

Korean

Color:

Color

Certification:

South Korea:18 | Japan:R-18 | Australia:MA

Interesting exploration of serial killing..

I'll try and say a bit about the film without giving too much away..

OUR TOWN is an interesting and well-told story exploring the motivations of serial killers, and the circumstances/experiences which leave a person vulnerable to the particular urges a killer may feel. It's intelligent and thought-provoking. The main character (the aspiring writer) has an unmistakable charisma and gave a great performance. Secondary players were also more than up to the task.

I liked how the so-called serial killer triad of behaviors i.e. bed-wetting, animal-torture and fire-starting, was implied rather than spelled out, and the main character seemed initially to be channeling Dostoyevsky's Raskolnikov (unfortunately, this promising development breaks down later as his childhood experiences are revealed).

The movie is , however, far from perfect.. and it is most unfortunate that its flaws, in my view, could have been easily remedied. Firstly, and most importantly, the flashbacks were immediately confusing. It was unclear which younger actor represented which elder kid in which flashback. This was a significant hindrance as the flashbacks are numerous and play an important role in fleshing out the three primary characters (also the jumps in time could have been dealt with more smoothly somehow, they tended to be a bit jarring and disorienting). Secondly, the subtitles at the screening i attended were inadequate. Many instances of Korean text appearing on screen were left untranslated, despite being obviously essential to the plot. It was fairly easy to infer more or less what information was being conveyed, but it disturbed the overall experience of the film significantly. On a lesser note, there is a glaringly distracting shot where a young girl who is supposed to be dead can CLEARLY be seen to be breathing. I would not normally complain about something as minor as this, but this actually leads to a brief spell of confusion since she appeared so obviously alive. Hence the simple "goof" graduates to incompetence.

Had these two major flaws not existed, OUR TOWN might have garnered an 8. As it stands, it gets a 7 on the strength of its story (Perhaps the DVD release will have better subtitles, so that problem may not be an issue for home viewers). It's a strong effort and unlike many Korean films of this nature, it thankfully didn't derail into hokeyness at the end of the final act (ala A BITTERSWEET LIFE, CHASER, NO MERCY FOR THE RUDE etc. etc. ad infinitum!).