This is Kim Ji-woon's debut film. He would go on to direct A Tale of Two Sisters, The Good, The Bad, the Weird and I Saw the Devil. The Quiet Family is probably most famous for being remade by Takashi Miike a few years later as The Happiness of the Katakuris. Miike's film is far more zany, and it's a ton of fun. Kim's film is probably a little bit better. It doesn't contain any musical numbers, zombies or sequences animated in clay. It's quite well directed, though there are some plot holes and loose threads. Kang-ho Song (Thirst, The Host) and Min-sik Choi (Oldboy, Failan) are the most recognizable of the five family members who own a remote mountain inn. Their business is doing poorly. After a few weeks, their first customer shows up. He dies. Probably a suicide, but it looks like murder. The family decides to bury them. More bad luck follows as nearly each and every guest who shows up at the inn dies under horrific circumstances. The family just keeps burying the bodies. The film is morbidly hilarious. It kind of gets sloppy around the end, but it's hugely amusing the whole way through. Probably my favorite of Kim's films that I've seen so far.
Review of The Quiet Family
