(1974)
Dir - Shin Sang-ok
Overall: MEH
The final supernatural horror film from director Shin Sang-ok, The Ghost Lovers, (Yan nu huan hun), is unfortunately sluggish and uneventful. It has a well-used kaidan scenario where a dead beautiful young woman and her also dead elderly companion try to make merriment with a good-natured man, but the story meanders endlessly with soft comedic playfulness and snore-inducing melodrama. There is never an emphasis on spooky atmosphere or any kind of tacky exploitation, with the otherworldly elements merely serving as a framing device for a doomed love story between two characters who were engaged when they were children and remain helplessly in admiration of each other even though they have spent the majority of their lives apart. If Shin was able to interject any kind of excitement or a mystical tone, (let alone if any of the intended humor landed so much as once), then such things could have enhanced a bare-bones plot that is desperately in need of such enhancement. It is not incompetent and suffices as a mild, low-stakes romance, but that is about it.
(1977)
Dir - Kim Ki-young
Overall: MEH
Strict gender roles, environmental issues, the encroaching inevitability of fate, peculiar and ancient customs, men lost at sea, plus an island that beckons for the dead, Kim Ki-young's adaptation of Lee Cheong-jun's 1974 novel Iodo, (here also known as Io Island), has a lot on its plate and sadly fails to bring it all to compelling life. The location scenery is lovely as cinematographer Jeong Il-seong captures the crashing waves, expansive hills, and wailing winds of the remote rocky island setting, turning it into a foreboding presence without any flashy camera tricks or visual flourishes. It becomes a bloated viewing experience though and the pacing is anything but forgiving. Several plot points are explored and half of the film is told in lengthy flashbacks, though many of the specifics are left dangling and are ultimately not important in order to soak in the melancholic atmosphere that Kim persistently maintains. While it works as a dour mood piece in this regard in spite of its loose ends, the matter of fact depiction of the story's all-female village and their quirky practices seems to hint at a more interesting movie than what is presented.
(1979)
Dir - Masahiro Shinoda
Overall: MEH
An adaptation of Izumi Kyōka's 1913 stage play of the same name, Demon Pond, (Yashagaike), is a folk tale fantasy set in three acts, and even though it is directed by respected Japanese New Wave filmmaker Masahiro Shinoda, it suffers under its laborious length. The story is simple enough as it concerns a village suffering from a prolonged drought which would otherwise be drowned in a supernaturally-charged flood if not for a bell being rung three times a day. Mystical beings are kept away by the bell towing as well, though we get to spend the second act with them lammenting such arbitrary rules that were set forth by their ancient ancestors. It is a shame that the first act is tortuously drawn-out and ultimately unnecessary since all of the information that we are given then is regularly repeated throughout the rest of the film. It still struggles to move along once we meet the colorful and melodramatic entities forty-nine minutes in, but the finale delivers a Ten Commandments-worthy water spectacle where the flood comes from the sky and all of the rotten townsfolk are doomed. Also, notable male kabuki actor Tamasaburo Bando plays a dual role as two women, though one would be hard-pressed to notice unless they read the credits.
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