Uninvited (2003)

Jeong-won is a man with no memory of his childhood and his real family. At the beginning of the film he witnesses the deaths of two young girls. He begins seeing the girls dead bodies ... See full summary »

Director:

Soo-youn Lee

Writer:

Soo-youn Lee

Stars:

Shin-yang Park, Ji-Hyun Jun, Seon Yu

3 wins & 4 nominations.

Cast

Credited cast:
Shin-yang Park	...	Jeong-won
Ji-Hyun Jun	...	Yeon
Seon Yu	...	Hee-eun
Ok Jeong
Joo-sil Lee	...	(as Ju-shil Lee)
Yeo-jin Kim
Rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Gook-hwan Jeon	...	Lawyer
Gi-hwa Kang
Won-Sang Park	...	Park Moon-sup (as Won-sang Park)

Storyline

Jeong-won is a man with no memory of his childhood and his real family. At the beginning of the film he witnesses the deaths of two young girls. He begins seeing the girls dead bodies sitting at his kitchen table. He meets Yeon, a narcoleptic who is a witness in a infant murder case. She can also see the "ghosts" and he soon finds out she is psychic and can also help him recover his lost memories.

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Plot Keywords:

psychotronic film | downward spiral | torture | television | tear on cheek | 

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Genres:

Drama | Horror | Thriller

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Details

Country:

South Korea

Language:

Korean

Release Date:

1 May 2003 (South Korea)

Also Known As:

The Uninvited

Box Office

Cumulative Worldwide Gross:

$90,638

Company Credits

Production Co:

B.O.M. Film Productions Co.

Technical Specs

Runtime:

127 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

User Reviews

A chilling psychological masterpiece

Jeong-won is an architect who one day - while going home on the subway - takes notice of two small girls who sits next to him. When he reaches the end-station he gets of, but the two girls remain seated. Later he learns that the girls were dead and from then on a series of events start to take place.

Basically Jeong-won has his life shattered by disturbing events that may be happening around him or in his head, or both. Watch it and judge for yourself. But the theme of this movie isn't whether the events are real or not. The movie tells a story where religion, psychology and supernatural elements mix together in an elegant cocktail of mystery, fear and love.

The story is great and very well told. You're told enough to make it all coherent, but there is also room for interpretation which makes the movie a personnel experience. The movie doesn't deal with good and evil in absolute terms, but deals with the fears and anxieties that we all harbor to some extent. And it deals with the dilemma of helping people to reconcile with a part of themselves that should have been left forgotten, or should it?

The true essence of the story isn't revealed until relatively late, compared to other movies who set the tone right from the beginning. To begin with I thought it was a simple ghost-story, but I was wrong. So if you don't like such twists, then consider yourself warned.

Quietness is probably the key word to the acting and the style of the movie. The actors succeed in making the characters very believable. Several of the scenes are beautifully made with the right camera angles, the right lighting, colors and so on. The ambiance is dripping with a mysterious silence and calm.

There are no cheap scares of the traditional Hollywood kind (which is a combination of fast editing combined with the explosion of a symphony orchestra). Instead the scary parts - or more properly for this movie - the chilling parts are shown in a forthright manner and what they depict is usually enough to get the heart rate up. When a movie is capable of giving you the chills without having to resort to loud noises or sudden events, then it is truly scary, and some of the scenes will stay with you for some time. A quality which separates true horror from the superficial scares which you can just shrug of after the movie.

However, this isn't a full blood horror movie. The horror scenes are just to few and the general horror-level isn't high enough. See this movie if you like a great story, riddled with mystery, fear and psychological deepness. I liked it a lot and I probably have to see it again in order to enjoy its elegant complexity.