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[HanCinema's Film Review + Video] "Red Eye": A Terrible Trip Down Memory Lane

My introduction to Korean cinema was less than stellar. It wasn't "Oldboy", "Memories of Murder", or "The Host" (i.e. some or other respectable modern masterpiece), but the trope-driven train wreck "Red Eye". I recently stumbled across this overzealous zeitgeist again on Viki.com, and my nagging nostalgia turned against my better judgement and I fired it up.

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I was surprised to find that director Kim Dong-bin had, prior releasing "Red Eye" (2005) upon us, had directed two other feature films: the drama "Mom Has a New Boyfriend" in 1995, and the horror flick "The Ring Virus" (1999). "The Ring Virus" explains the various ghastly horror tropes sprinkled throughout my first Korean encounter, because Kim's third feature, Kōji Suzuki 's "Ring" (1998), and the American remake "The Ring" (2002) are all cultured adaptations of Koji Suzuki's original 1991 novel: "Ring".

Kim's filmography is suspiciously spacey, and his latest effort, "Two Moons" (2012)-another horror-struggled and claimed only 427K at the box office. In all likelihood, Kim Dong-bin's "Red Eye" should have deterred me from tumbling down Korea's cine-hole, but it didn't. Amidst the placid plot points and inert horror, there was a compositional something that kept me riding this infected ghost ride.

Exactly 15 years after a train wreck left 250 dead, Mi-seon (Jang Shin-young), the conductor's daughter whose father was on duty that fateful day, decides to book her work shift aboard the train's last trip from Seoul to Yeosu. Min-sun is a train attendant (freshly trained); she walks the isles trying to sell her quoted of snacks and drinks to the scarce and scattered passengers. She's horrible at her job, but her kind heart and desire to be close to her father keeps her aboard and mobile.

This drearily ominous train then starts to become self-aware, and appreciates the significance of the course in question and crosses over. It/she terrifies a few choice characters, reveals herself to our haunted heroine, and eventually threatens to consume the lives of all those on board. Again, the film's plot and progression is not its most flattering, but along this runaway leitmotif came a few pleasant beats that are spaced just enough apart to make the film's 97 minutes possibly pleasing.  

My next two entries were Chung Yoon-chul's successful drama "Marathon" (2005), and another train-inspired flick, this time of the action variety, "Tube" (2003); both of which were, once again, not of my choosing, but having been blinded by "Red Eye"(and then these two melodramatic and manic flicks) I still managed to move on and start curating my own path through modern Korean cinema.

 

- C.J. Wheeler (chriscjw@gmail.com@KoreaOnTheCouch)

 

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