Eun-young is a young woman who has come to view her beauty as a curse. Not only do strange men follow her around, proposition her, and harass her on the street but it has gotten to the point where even her best friend’s boyfriend has begun calling and texting her nonstop with his confessions of undying love (or lust). One day said boyfriend gets tired of her constantly rejecting him and attacks her on the street. He’s chased off by a cop and Eun-young is traumatized but otherwise perfectly fine. That is until her best friend finds out and breaks off their friendship under the assumption that Eun-young ‘tempted’ her ‘pure hearted’ boyfriend.

Now alone Eun-young is heartbroken but does her best to go about her everyday lie even though the effects of her curse seem to become ever more present. Always feeling as if she’s being watched, the sensations increase but are otherwise ignored since Eun-young’s many admirers inadvertently mask the behavior of the one stalker who turns out to be dangerous.

Each time she comes home there is a boatload of bouquets and love letters awaiting her at the front desk of her apartment building. Just like usual she has them thrown out but on the day she loses her best friend, she asks the doorman not to accept any gifts at all. That doesn’t go to well in the lovesick mind of one of her fans as he takes the rejection as a personal one. He decides to confront her about it and after making his way into her apartment he proceeds to beat and rape her.

That was bad enough but afterwards he feels so guilty and horrified over what he had done (proof maybe that he had once been a decent person) that he takes pictures of Eun-young’s body and turns them, along with his stalker vids, into the police when he turns himself in for the crime. When the police bring her in to identify him he claims that he did what he did because of her.

It was all her fault because she was too beautiful. Her beauty raped him first and he was simply returning the favor. And oddly enough, the detective in charge of the investigation seems to agree.

This incident is what sparks the destructive spiral that Eun-Young falls into. She tries to destroy herself, kill the beauty that men seem to find so irresistible and women so detestable. What she isn’t aware of until much later is that her curse has struck again and Eun-Chul (played by Cheon-hee Lee), the same cop who saved her earlier, is the latest victim to fall under her spell.

I say victim for one simple reason. The movie still had me at this point. I can understand why the cop suddenly developed a fascination with her. She had the whole damsel in distress thing going on, and he seemed like an honestly nice guy. When she starts stuffing herself in an attempt to get fat so people will no longer find her beautiful, he was right there helping her get up out of her vomit and paying for her food when she stole from the grocery store. Then when she didn’t gain any weight and decided to starve herself instead, he was right there again picking her up out of her own vomit and trying to keep her from killing people when she hallucinated.

But then he started stalking her. Taking pictures of her when she was passed out in the park, trying to steal a kiss when she collapses in a public restroom after throwing up a hamburger, and even jerking off to a freeze frame of her face taken from the videos made by her former stalker. It gets to the point where he’s taking vacation time off of work just so he can follow her at his leisure. I was like ‘whoa, are there no other vaginas in Korea?’ but I went with it because it was still in the realm of possibility.

Then came the ending, and believe me it was a doozy.

Beautiful is the type of movie that can’t be taken at surface value. There are so many hidden depths and undertones of the movie that it may take a few watches before you can fully appreciate all its quirks. � Beautiful is a movie that explains the curse associated with a pretty face and the dark, hidden corners that live in everyone just waiting for the catalyst that will send them into the light.

Beautiful was written by Jae-Hong Jeon and Ki-duk Kim and directed by Jae-Hong Jeon

Who hasn’t been looking forward to the release of the film Mother set to release on the 12th of March? For those of you who could have cared less, you may change your mind after getting a peak at the official movie poster that was released. I have to admit that I wasn’t too terribly impressed even with the poster staring me in the face, though it does show promise. However, my tune changed right around the time I found out that Mother was directed by Bong Joon-Ho.

So basically five seconds ago when I was doing research for this article. Anyway, imagine my surprise when I went all ‘Who the hell is Bong Joon-Ho’ and Googled him, only to realize that he is the mastermind behind two of my most favorite movies; Memories of Murder and The Host. Holy snickerdoodles batman! I think I just peed a bit in happiness! But seriously, all joking aside Joon-Ho’s latest film looks like an epic change from what we’ve come to expect from him. Walking that line between bloody and violent to sentimental, Mother is dangerously close to being, dare I say it, universal in its appeal. A murder mystery, Mother sets the stage for the accomplished Korean actress Kim Hye-je to really show us what she’s made of if we didn’t know already. Hye-ja is a single mother of her 27-year-old son, Do-joon (Bin Won).

A little slow minded and naive, Do-joon is blamed when a girl he had been following the night before ends up murdered in an abandoned building. With an incompetent lawyer and an apathetic police department, the case is closed pretty quickly once they have Do-joon in custody. Hye-ja is the only person who believes in his innocence and she will do anything to prove it to those who have taken her son from her. For those lucky ones who have seen the film already and for any die hards who havn’t, you can now download a full-sized poster of Mother via Magnolia Pictures.

You can also check the AMP review for ‘Mother’ available HERE

And it was.

Not to say the graphics didn’t suck, because they did. Epically. But the movie was good enough to make up for a lot of that. The storyline is just as we remember it. Saya, Gianna Jun,  is a vampire working for a secret part of the government that kills vampires. In the film the setting is Japan post WW2. Saya infiltrates a military school to learn which of the students is a vampire (which she calls demons) in disguise. She befriends Alice Mckee, played by Allison Millier, when Saya saves her from two of the vamps who’re trying to kill her at the time.

The two happen to be two of the most irritating girls in the class, which would have been convenient for Saya’s conscience when she kills them, if she’d had one to begin with. I was pleasantly surprised to see Masiela Lusha, who plays Carmen on the George Lopez which appears on Nick at Night, as one of the vampires. She’s dyed blond and has swallowed a heavy duty bitch pill and the severe change to that from her persona on the show was great to see.  Anyway I love the budding friendship between Alice and Saya. The fight scenes in the movie are reminiscent of Flying tiger Hidden Dragon, which is expected since both movies share the same director.

Chris Nahon did some really cool effects with the blood to where it congealed into almost solid droplets once shed. Almost like flying jello. Sounds gross but once you get used to it it’s a nifty effect. This has all the requirements of an awesome anime remake. Flying ninjas, old sensei’s that look faintly like Mr. Miagi from the karate kid being torn apart by blades through all his major appendages, and finally and best of all, a Darth Vadar/Luke Skywalker type moment towards the end.

The combination of Japanese and American actors was perfect. There were never any awkward, um-what’s-up-with-this-combo moments. Gianna is flawless in the sword fighting and her acting is top notch. I think I actually shed a tear or two at one point or another. Allison Miller was a nice addition to the storyline and manages not to give Americans everywhere a bad name like some of the actors.

But back to my biggest complaint. The people were good, the people almost turning into vamps were good, Saya in demon mode was good as well as Onigen’s, played by Koyuki, transformation into demon from hell (literally). But full on vamps, complete with wings and gaping, hungry jaws and beady red eyes…yeah, I could have gouged my eyes out. At one point in the movie it was like an animated computer monster (created on the older version of Mac) was spliced onto the film at the appropriate times.  I understand the fact that the Asian film graphics aren’t as advanced as the stuff in the U.S, but hey. There’s Americans in the movie, which means that Nahon would have been allowed to mooch off some of our blue screen technology. Thankfully the monster half of the movie isn’t the last thing you see and he makes up for his previous visual faux pas during the fight with Onigen and Saya.

One cool concept that I liked about the movie was the references that kept being made between the unseen world of the vampires and that of Alice in Wonderland’s looking glass. That they have a character named Alice could either be deliberate or a coincidence that was taken appropriate advantage of. Either way it works and it’s a nice way to tie things together.

Blood: The Last Vampire premiered in theatres in Japan in May of this year and though some recommend that you watch the animated movie first, I personally don’t really think it matters. Though both should be watched as many times as possible. It’s a great 3D addition to anyone’s Blood pack of goodies. It made me want to go back and pay more attention to the anime. Which I will do just as soon as I have the cash to raid the nearest video store.

Blood: The Last Vampire was directed by Chris Nahon and written Chris Chow (screenplay) and Kanji Kamiyama (character)

Slowly.

I don’t say this just because I’m not the brightest bulb in the happy meal either. Everyone may make fun of the half naked chick who runs through the forest, screams, trips, falls, and then dies, but you’ve never seen her tortured now have you? In Final Destination it wasn’t the dumb people who stayed on the plane or who decided to ride the coaster anyway who died in drawn out, bloody ways. No, it was the smart asses who escaped and tried to come up with inventive solutions to get out of what was going on which only seemed to tick off death in the end. Hence the inventive little murders like death by fishhooks and elevator doors, and suffocating on a plastic fish in the dentist’s office while you’re doped up on Novocain.

The point is, be smart by not being smart.

Lay down and die and you won’t have another hour and a half of screaming, blood and gore torture to go through. Personally I think it’s a win, win situation. Mike Meyers meets his quota for the week and as a result you’ve helped out your fellow man.

Or serial killer.

Death Bell is a perfect example of what I mean. Not to say that they follow my advice and lie down and die, oh no. They do me one better.

For the first half of the film, they let everyone else die instead. Death Bell is like the ultimate version of a reverse Saw, if you don’t get the puzzles right, it’s not you who suffers for the failure, but your friends and classmates.

It is, in a purely horror filmy way, Epic.

The spicy heroine of the film Kang Yi-na, played by Nam Gyu-ri, has just been chosen as one of the top twenty students in her school, along with Kim Bum as Kang Hyeon, Yi-Na’s love interest, and her best friend Yoon Myong-hyo, played by Han Na-yeon. This special class, filled to the brim with the elite, is held over the break to get the students ready for their college entrance exams. At first it simply seems like another boring study session, but about halfway through things begin to go horribly wrong.

Beethoven’s Fur Elise heralds the chilling image of Hye-yeong, the class’s top student, trapped inside a giant fish tank on the class’s television screen. On the glass, framing the terrified girl as she scrambles and tries to beat her way out of her makeshift coffin, is a riddle. A disembodied voice over the intercom informs the shocked students along with the three remaining teachers in the school, that the riddle needed an answer before the girl died.

Then the tank, once empty, begins to slowly fill with water.

The first victim in the movie never had a chance. Terrified and disbelieving, by the time the students finish arguing with each other as well as the head teacher Hwang Chan-wook, English teacher Choi So-yeong, as well as Lee Chi-yeong who seems to hate  Kang Hyeon and blames him for what’s going on at every opportunity, it is only to look up and find Hye-yeong floating, lifeless, inside of the tank.

The bell plays once again and the voice warns that should anyone try and leave the school then they would be killed. Their cell phones have disappeared along with the student in charge of collecting them. The school’s security and phone lines have been cut. The grounds are being watched and those who leave are taken out by an invisible enemy. And everywhere they look, one of their numbers is taken only to be replaced by yet another riddle that could mean their life or death. Students are being murdered in order of their ranking and Yi-na is fifth on the list.

The difficulty of the questions increase as night falls, and with each answer and each death, the shocking truth about the schools most securely kept secret begins to make itself known.

As the only Korean film released in 2008, Death Bell premiered at the 12th Puchon International Fantastic Film Festival. Though rushed in order to be ready for the festival in time, Death Bell turned out to be one of the top five most popular horror film in Korea. Not nearly as shattering as A Tale of Two Sisters, but still satisfying enough to keep horror lovers fat and happy.   So while some critiques may dub it ‘torture porn’ they obviously can’t appreciate a good thing when they see it. I’ll admit that the buildup is more exciting than its subsequent ending, but all in all the film was tied nicely together. I would have loved to see what former music video director Yoon Hong-seun could have done with his first horror film had he had more time.

The film marks the acting debut of Korean pop star Nam Gyu-ri, as well as comic aficionado Lee Beom-soo’s first ever role in the world of the dark and bloody. Both do a good enough job that it won’t be surprising if we see them again this genre. Gyu-ri and Kim Bum have amazing chemistry together and add in the dedication between Gyu-ri and Han Na-yeon, and the three of them make a devastating triad. One where the loss of any of them turns the senselessness of their deaths into something more than ‘torture porn’ and converts it into something entirely more poignant.

Death Bell or Gosa, was written Yoon Hong-Seung and Kim Eun-Kyeong and directed by Yoon Hong-Seung

As a massive fan of the legend Yuen Biao, i cant wait to see what film or tv series he will be doing next. In this movie he only as a cameo role but the film itself looks really good, Biao in this movie will be playing a police Officer (Superintendent).

Michael Tse Tin Wah plays the character of Laughing,who is supposedly an undercover police officer who has infiltrated a triad organization. But before then what people do not know is Laughing used to work for the traids before becoming a police officer for big boss man No.1 (Anthony Wong).

The boss looked after Laughing and even thinks of him as his brother, so he decides to put Laughing into the police to try and find information about the plans for certain operations by the police. Before he was assigned to a post as a police officer, his image attracted the attention of the Head of the Anti-Triad Squad, Sin (Yuen Biao) who arranges laughing to be an undercover cop to infiltrate the mob syndicate.

There is also a part love story in the movie as Laughing falls in love with Karen (Fala Chen) whos the daughter of rival gang boss played by Francis Ng. No matter what happens, laughing is in a situation where he has to choose from his old gang, police or his girlfriend – which will he choose?

The movie was released August 13th 2009 in hong kong. Even though its only a cameo – Yuen Biao is back on our screens. Make sure you catch the movie.

Click here to view the embedded video.