Gifted (2014) User Reviews

Fairly Average

[niaz_islam · 5/10 · 17 August 2018]

Min-soo (Beom-soo Jeon) was just a typical guy who was struggling through life until he taps into his evil side.

This film has an usual story line where the main character is facing financial troubles. So he started to do illegal things to augment his income but eventually started to like his life of crime. So there is nothing new in the script grab the attention of the audience. Casting was not exceptional either. The average performance of the lead characters made the scenes somewhat monotonous.

Not recommended. It is certainly not a must watch film but it would be a good choice to fill up a lazy afternoon.

Amaze me, thrill me, make me laugh. No sorry.

[christopher-underwood · 7/10 · 13 December 2018]

Competently made film that is engaging enough. Fairly slow burn as tale unfolded and there was some frustration as I knew where it was going and it was taking too long. And then it didn't go there. Where it then began to go was into a very dark area. The youth and his fiancé and her brother are together one way or another from the beginning but the relationship changes and this gets very dark. Unfortunately the style remains the same, indeed this lacks any sort of style at all. Presumably, intentionally, the director presents everything in a very matter of fact way and so we are confronted directly with the protagonists' actions. There is no filter, no element of artifice or artistry and somehow it does not seem enough. This should probably have developed into a black comedy or been presented a la Tarantino with perhaps style over substance. As it is it is something rather unusual in cinema. It is to be taken at face value and leaves us feeling something is missing. Amaze me, thrill me, make me laugh. No sorry.

Arthouse bore

[Leofwine_draca · 2/10 · 25 July 2023]

Normally I love Korean thrillers but this dud is the exception. It's a cheapskate production that feels like it takes forever to get going; half the running time is over before anything of note happens. There's the usual background of financial difficulty and the like which informs the proceedings, but not in an interesting way. The unlikeable protagonist is a chap who finds himself with an unexpected talent, and the film then goes on from there. But the kills are unpleasant and repetitive, and the entire film singularly lacks the kind of suspense that it needs to make any kind of impact on the viewer. Instead it feels like an arthouse bore.