Dead Friend (2004)

A teenage girl suffering from amnesia discovers that she is somehow connected to a group of people who are being killed off one by one by a vengeful ghost.

Director:

Tae-kyeong Kim

Writer:

Tae-kyeong Kim

Stars:

Ha-neul Kim, Sang-mi Nam, Hye-bin Jeon

1 win.

Cast

Credited cast:
Ha-neul Kim	...	Min Ji-won (as HaNeul Kim)
Sang-mi Nam	...	Su-in
Hye-bin Jeon	...	Eun-seo (as Bin)
Yi Shin	...	Mi-kyeong
Hie-ju Jeon	...	Yu-jeong
Yun-ji Lee	...	Eun-jeong
Rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Ran Choi	...	Su-in's mum
Ju-bong Gi	...	Detective
Hae-sook Kim	...	Ji-won's mum (as Hae-suk Kim)
Greena Park	...	(as Grina Park)
Jin Ryu	...	Park Jun-ho

Storyline

The teenager Min Ji-won is suffering from amnesia and being haunted by weird visions. When she meets her former high school friend Oh Yu-jeong, she receives a picture of her high school group of friends: Kim Eun-seo, who had recently died; Shin Mi-kyeong, who is in the hospital and Eun-jeong. Ji-won questions who took the picture, and when she visits her former friends, she recalls Han Su-in, a girl that was badly treated and humiliated by their group, disclosing her past and the fate of Su-in and finding a scary hidden truth.

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Plot Keywords:

amnesia | ghost | water | bodily possession | jealousy | 

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Taglines:

Don't remember... Take it to your grave.

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Genres:

Horror

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Certificate:

Not Rated

User Reviews

Ho-hum story

I received this Corean film for free when I purchased a bunch of other titles from YesAsia.com. I didn't really want it, but every time I deleted a free title, this one would pop up. Eventually, I consented to receive this one for free.

This is a horror film, as you can tell from the title, and is not related to the U.S. film bearing the same name. The setup is this: There's an amnesiac woman who starts seeing funny things. People who she used to know start to wind up dead. Spooky goings on, I say. Spooky.

Personally, I wasn't terribly frightened during the course of the film, although the jump-scares were sometimes effective, but at other times failed to startle me. The central conceit of the film (the amnesia) is a little silly, but I suppose that's what you deal with in horror films. In this one, it allows the film to be a mystery as well, as the young woman tries to recollect the past. The end conceits are a little forced and a bit hard to buy, personally, but it does help the film to be a little bit more than a total genre knockoff.

Unfortunately, the film still ends up being less than impressive. The acting isn't terrible and the overall direction is easy to take in. It's just that the story is ho-hum. I suppose you could do a lot worse; this is mildly entertaining stuff. 6/10.

Details

Country:

South Korea

Language:

Korean

Release Date:

18 June 2004 (South Korea)

Also Known As:

Dead Friend

Filming Locations:

South Korea

Box Office

Budget:

$1,800,000 (estimated)

Cumulative Worldwide Gross:

$178,161

Company Credits

Production Co:

Popcorn Films

Technical Specs

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1