The Witch: Part 1 The Subversion ( Thriller/Korean/ 2018/ Prime)
The story revolves around a young girl who remembers nothing about her past and is being chased by some very dangerous bunch of people.
Director – Park Hoon-jung
Cast -Kim Da-mi , Jo min-su, Choi Woo-shik, Go Min-si, Park Hi-soon
Plot
A young girl of 8 escapes from some kind of facility and finds refuge with a childless couple.
10 yrs later, her past, which she remembers nothing of, comes back to haunt her now serene quiet life.
Analysis
There are so many things I love about Korean cinema. There would be twists, turns and most often, the unexpected. Whether horror or thriller or sombre one, there is a certain something about their storytelling which makes it very engaging, thrilling and quite often genre bending.
Let me clarify that The Witch, with a title that I would call a misnomer, is not a horror. It could more accurately be described as a thriller at best if I am not to give away the spoiler in my enthusiasm to place it in a genre.
The story begins on a very intriguing note, then jumps time period and dwells upon the quiet , serene life of our protagonist. It leaves you perplexed for quite some time when the monsters from the past come back to haunt her. While you are busy making your calculations and guesses, wham comes the first twist. And then while you recover and empathise, comes another.
Along with such twists and turns, comes amazing slick action. I quite enjoyed rewinding and replaying some of the action sequences.
Technically and BGM wise too, I always find their films impressive and that is the case here too.
Recommendation
Let me confess that IMDB rating of 7.1 and the misnomer had given rise to very high expectations. But keeping that aside, it was quite a good watch.
Recommended for those who love Korean cinema ,psychological thrillers and good action.