I have to say that in recent years, from "Parasite" to "Burning", from "Victory" to "Like a Butterfly",
From "Irresistible Him" to "Sweet Home", "My Name", "Squid Games"........
After South Korea hit the global market and hitched a ride on Netflix, all types of film and television series performed quite well.
After all, South Korea's multi-element, multi-cultural combination is relatively successful on a global scale.
It is also the best country that can combine the mysticism of the East, the complex and secret rules and culture, and the silky fast-paced and commercial nature of European and American dramas.
It seems to be calculated accurately with a calculator, and there is no lack of high-level symbols and lens uses, "Parasite",
Heavy rain from the high platform all the way down, running to the basement of the "parasites", a heavy rain can make the true face of the people at the bottom of the original appearance,
The sense of commercial rhythm and artistry are combined by Bong Joon-ho,
And the double symbolism of Native Americans and parasites is really a word - wonderful!
There is also an accurate combination of the dual dilemmas of the lonely old and the confused young in Southeast Asian society.
"Like a Butterfly" uses the beautiful but painful way of ballet to reconcile, which is also painful and beautiful.
And "Sweet Home", "My Name", "Victory".
These works are joined forces with Netflix, which has both the fast-paced and smooth look and feel of Netflix.
There is also no shortage of Koreans who dare to take pictures of their own social reality and speak code words.
Literature and art, crime, social reality, symbolic metaphors, love...
Even the light science fiction "Turning Time into An Opportunity" and "Surprising Rumors",
In the past two years, the quality of Koreans has been very rare and guaranteed in the case of high production.
But there is a type that Koreans really don't really do!
In August 2021, South Korea released a horror movie "Ghost Gate", which was collectively complained about.
In September 2021, South Korea once again released a horror movie "Hometown", but it could not turn over.
After all, 2021 is the turnaround year for Asian horror genres.
"Southern Witch" is a literary and artistic allegorical oriental mysticism,
Thailand's "Psychic Medium" is a religious weirdness, abnormality and large scale that people are afraid of.
"Crying Sorrow" is a strange love affair in Taiwan Province that combines the end of the world with the purgatory on earth.
In recent years, South Korea, which has a fairly strong film and television culture output, will naturally arrange horror themes to enter the scene.
For example, in 2021, Liu Zaiming + Han Yili starred in "Hometown",
A Korean gold medal supporting role, a Korean female supporting actress who broke into Hollywood, the cooperation between these two people is also a quality assurance.
It's still the kind of weird murder in the mountains of a remote township in South Korea.
The overall sense of atmosphere of "Hometown", although there are multi-line developments in 1998, 1983, and 2000,
But the story in general has a remote and lonely sense of weirdness.
The four student sisters in the school recording studio always get together during the holidays or after school.
Obviously, it is the safest school, but after school, it also reveals a cold, dark and strange feeling.
The four girls were chatting and gossiping in the studio, which teacher had secretly opened a cram school, and the murderer's daughter was in the same class as herself...
Suddenly there was a knock at the door, and even in the safest campus, there was a sense of eerieness.
Who would enter campus during the holidays and knock on the studio door?
Suddenly a tape was tucked into the crack of the door, and after a long time, a girl plucked up the courage to open the door and look at it, and there was no one outside...
Cold weather, empty campus, tapes under the cracks in the doors,
Even if nothing happens, the whole story has taken on a frightening and eerie atmosphere.
Like "Memories of Killing" and "Monsters", Korean horror films are best at creating marginal towns.
Although the technology is backward, but the neighbors know each other's warm town,
Suddenly, one rainy night, the female student who returned home as usual was suddenly killed inexplicably, shocking the whole town.
And the weirdness of the fringe town of the strange story created in the various timelines of "Hometown" is also very in place,
At the beginning, the dark house was afraid to go to the bathroom to take a bath, and as a result, when they went to the bathtub, they were dragged to death by the female ghost, and the two mothers and daughters who died tragically in the apartment were uncared for.
The atmosphere of the four student sisters listening to the recording in the recording studio is also very strange.
Cold and rainy weather, the instructions released in the tape that make people's backs hairy as if to control people, and the knocking sound of people seeping outside the door,
There is only a kind grandfather in the security booth, and the school that seems to be the safest is actually full of insecure elements...
Multiple cases of retro and small town fragmentation intersect together,
The timeline continues to overlap, the more the investigation goes back to the longer, the texture of anti-modern technology is thick and charming,
The most familiar place is the most dangerous place,
Who knew that in the small town where they had lived for many years and the neighbors were familiar with each other, suddenly there was a cruel murder on a cold rainy night.
Is the real culprit an outsider, or is it the "most familiar stranger" who lurks around him and comes out at night to kill people?
Including the evil female murderer who is locked up at home in "The Telephone",
The "plain-looking" rainy night murderer in "Memories of Killing", the nameless villager who killed the female student in "Monster"...
Korean dramas are creating a panicked atmosphere in a remote town, which is a must.
And "Hometown" has a super cast, but it is still niche and unpopular for the same reason as "Ghost Gate".
In the past two years, Korean-style horror films have really been too obsessed with "multi-line narrative",
The timeline that can be cut to create suspense, the immersive narrative of several cases constantly intersecting together, makes it easy for the audience to get lost...
After all, jumping around, and unconnected cases, it is easy for the audience to not convert,
The same is true in "Ghost Gate", multi-line narrative, time and space travel, there is a religious allegory atmosphere, but also there are cause and effect metaphors,
The result is like a mess of yarn in the end, so that the audience can't figure it out.
And "Hometown" is the same, the sudden appearance of murderers in the marginal town, the sense of panic is well done,
However, hallucinations, real cases, the correspondence of cult kidnapping and murder, the sense of horror campus, and the interweaving of multiple time and space make the perception of "Hometown" very fragmented.
"Hometown" is really a bit of a representative Korean horror drama: I want to show too much, and in the end, I can't show anything well!
There are many clues, many high energy, and fast pace, but a glass of water is spilled half a cup because it is too full, making people see in the clouds.
The old Korean tradition is to familiarize yourself with the murder cases in the town that shock everyone in the gray and dark picture, how to integrate into a multi-line narrative that is more brain-burning suspense rather than pure authenticity.
It seems that for Korean screenwriters, it is really a big test!