Sorum (2001) (Korean), Poster Big, Synopsis and Plot

A 29 year old Taxi driver named Yong-hyun moves into a new apartment. But his new home is very dilapidated and even worst; the whole building is about to be torn down because of its poor condition. Only four other people remain on the same floor as Yong-hyun. Mr. Lee an old writer who never got any real success in his life, Eun-su a young piano teacher and Sun-young an abused wife who can’t escape her drunken husband. But soon after that Yong-hyun moved into his apartment, he learned that a man died in a fire in the same apartment not too long ago. H Also 30 years ago, a husband, who ran away with the woman living next door, killed his wife and abandoned a newborn baby who almost died in a fire.
With the time passing, these fives tenants will begin to know each other a little more. Yong-hyun is developing a very close relationship with Sun-young the abused wife and he will also befriend the writer Mr. Lee. But it seems that all these characters hide a very dark past. Yong-hyun is suspect in the disappearance of his ex-wife, Sun-young lost her child a couple of year ago and Mr. Lee was apparently a very close friend to the guy who died in the apartment no so long ago. Were these fires really accidents and is there any connection between all these mysterious and strange events

Review: At first glance it looked like a horror movie, well I was expecting to see some ghost and dark chilling fantasy elements, but Sorum is not exactly your typical horror ghost story movie.

In fact, there’s no ghost at all and there’s also almost no fright factor either, so calling Sorum a horror movie would not be exactly right. It is more of a dark drama driven by a very claustrophobic and tense atmosphere than anything else. Unlike the current wave of Asian horror movies, Sorum doesn’t have any fantasy or ghost element but instead try to hook the spectator by using a very impressive cinematography. In addition the movie uses a lot of environmental sound effects to make the spectator feel like they are really in the movie.

Because of the very slow paced story, Sorum is probably not the kind of movie that everyone will enjoy. The slow story deals a lot about the past lives of the characters, that all seem to be hiding some skeleton in their closet. How all these small plots connected together was interesting, even if some were a little predictable. It also takes a while to really understand every point of the movie, but don’t worry everything comes together at the end. About the ending, we really thought that it was a little disappointing as it finished a little too fast. In a way that you get the answer you wanted but we were expecting a big major shocking conclusion just before the closing credits, but did not get one. If the ending would have been a little better maybe the viewing would have been more gratifying since it takes a while to really see were this strange story is going.

The story also focuses a lot on the relationship between the characters, so if you find them uninteresting, you probably will have the impression of wasting your time while watching this film. The acting was excellent and really believable but the characters were sometimes very hard to understand, as their attitude is never clear and also change during the movie. At first they all look very plain and typical, but they are far from your ordinary Korean habitants. Yong-hyun, the main character, was probably the most interesting because of his enigmatic past and also especially with his lame imitations of Bruce Lee. Sun-young, the abused wife, is probably the hardest character to get as she was very weird and her feelings are never clear. Maybe those of you, who like mysterious characters, will probably enjoy her more. But the general impression for all these characters was not a feeling of compassion as they were all generally good on the side of acting but for me there was no character that I could rely on. Even at the end, when we finally really know what was going on in their lives, I was not really impressed by the few surprises that the director attempted to for us to swallow.

The movie is very slow and also doesn’t have a lot scary scenes in it. As I said, Sorum is not really a horror movie but a dark drama. Don’t expect to see any ghost or intensely scary scenes because you will be disappointed for sure. When I was watching the movie I was really wondering what was exactly the point of the movie, as it didn’t look like the story was going anywhere. Most of the film is about the relationship between these characters and there’s no real entertainment value in it. But in the end, I understood that the real value of this movie was basically the look and atmosphere of it. It might look strange saying this but what really makes this movie stick out from the rest is really the dark chilling atmosphere that the movie had. It is mostly shot at night and it also rained very often. With the use of the sound and scenery, the director really made the visuals and sounds a very important part of the movie, probably the most important and also the only real interesting part of the movie. If you are looking for a horror movie, look somewhere else.

If you like movie with a strong visual style, you will probably find Sorum very interesting but take note that it is the only real interesting thing of the whole the movie. Maybe if the character would have been more likable and interesting, the movie would probably have a better effect on the spectator. It is too bad because the atmosphere is an important part in a horror/thriller movie and Sorum had a really good one but there was nothing else to really back up that atmosphere

Directed: Jong-chan Yun
Genre:Drama/Horror/Mystery
Runtime: 110 Minutes
Country: South Korea
Language: Korean Language Version
Subtitles: English/Spanish(.idx, .sub) English(.srt)
AKA: Goosebumps (undefined) (literal English title)
Torihada-Japan
IMDB:http://imdb.com/title/tt0294929/

Trailer