HANSEL & GRETEL (Evokative, 2007) D: Yim Phil-sung, w/ Cheon Jeong-myeong, Park Hee-soon. Rating: NNNN DVD package: NNN Rating: NNNN
Director Yim Phil-sung’s Hansel & Gretel doesn’t have the polish of Guillermo del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth or Neil Jordan’s The Company Of Wolves, but it has the same spirit and uses the same method of turning classic fairy tale material inside out to reveal serious themes beneath its psychological and supernatural chills.
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A young salesman (Cheon Jeong-myeong), dazed after a car crash, arrives at a cottage in the woods inhabited by a somehow too perfect family. In short order, he discovers that he can’t find his way out of the woods, Mom and Dad have disappeared, and the three children insist that he replace their parents, forever.
The actors establish an effective mood of mounting dread and suppressed rage. As an over-friendly deacon who wanders into the tension, Park Hee-soon stands out for a happy creepiness reminiscent of Christopher Walken.
Yim’s extremely low-tech approach to dolly shots and the car crash provides most of the fun in the homespun making-of docs, and his two short films are worth checking out.
EXTRAS Three making-of docs, director and cast interviews, two director short films, essay booklet. Widescreen. Korean audio. English, French subtitles.
