“H” (2002/South Korea)
Film: B
Picture: B Sound: B+ Extras: B
The slipcase for the film describes it as “Se7en
meets Silence of the Lambs.” That is a clever-if-obvious marketing tool,
but has a different meaning to Asian cinema fans; that this might deliver. Especially since H is violent,
gritty, real, and in some places – a little too real – much like the other two
aforementioned films. Like Se7en
there are disturbed cops, plenty of cat and mouse chase sequences, and a climax
that takes place out in the middle of nowhere.
Though director Jong-hyuk Lee is no David Fincher and no actor in this
film stands out the disturbing way that Kevin Spacey does. Like Silence of the Lambs there is
the “creepy killer lurking around his jail cell who always happens to say
things that piss off trained cops that pull their guns on him.” Though the “Clarice character” in this film
certainly is no Jodie Foster and if the killer isn’t half of Kevin Spacey, he’s
obviously not either a quarter Anthony Hopkins. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. As Jim Jarmusch says, “nothing is
original. If you’re going to steal –
steal from the best.”
The topsy-turvy plot of H begins when a serial
killer named Shin-Hyun turns himself into the police for committing a series of
bizarre crimes. We soon meet two
Detectives, a chain smoking hard ass female and a disturbed confused male. More crimes begin when more serial killers
come into the picture and start hacking whatever females they can find. All of
them are killing like Shin-Hyun! It’s
up to the two detectives to figure out this murderous plot. These two cops always seem to get to the
scene of the crime right after something has happened to get that extra little
scare out of the audience. Sometimes
they’ll find a bloody body part or a body will just simply fall out of the sky
right onto their car. Throughout all of
this, Detective Kang Tae Hun (Jin-hee Ji) is having episodes of mass hysteria
that send him onto the brink of madness.
We later realize what H stands for and exactly what is going on
and an interesting twist wrap up this little yarn.
H is not a bad film by any means but it’s slow and
sometimes loses your attention. With a
more stylistic director and a stronger cast and maybe a razor to a few of the
shock surprises thrown in, the film could be much more interesting to
watch. The transfer on the film is
decent, but because of the desaturated, tired, pseudo-hip look of such films,
none of the colors really pop out at you and captivate the way I feel they
could have. The film was shot in a
gorgeous, anamorphically enhanced 2:35.1 aspect ratio that lends itself well to
the film’s genre. The film looks good,
if typical of the Asian slate of such films and Serial Killer cycle. Then there is the sound. The DTS 5.1 Surround Sound track on this
disc is excellent. Throughout the film
the sound pans from speaker to speaker to give you an idea of the insanity that
the characters are experiencing. The
disc also comes completed with a Dolby Digital 5.1 track that is good but
nowhere near as detailed and as full as the DTS 5.1 track. Tartan’s commitment to high audio fidelity
is great and keeps their Asian releases in the forefront of a very crowded
market.
The extras on this disc are decent with an alternate
opening (that I think suites the film better than the lame one they slapped on
the final cut.) A nice Behind the
Scenes documentary, Easter Eggs, photo gallery and previews for Tartan Asia
Extreme New Releases.
If you’re into strange murder mysteries then H is
definitely worth checking out. I didn’t
hate the film, I just didn’t love it and don’t put it on par with the films
that it compared itself to on the slipcase.
The film is slow and violent and has some great moments. It just doesn’t
hold up for me overall as a film worth too many repeat viewings.
- Jamie Lockhart
