Masterful Movie

An Exercise In Nonsense

Clever, believable, and super fun to watch. It totally has replay value.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

'Say Yes' is one of those flicks that you keep hoping is going to get better, but it never does. It's the kind of 'motiveless psychopath decides to menace an innocent couple' crapfest, so beloved of straight to video film-makers. The dialogue is clunky and, in several places, poorly translated. The acting is uniformly poor, especially from the villain of the piece, played by Joong-Hoon Park. He seems to think that by not blinking and trying to talk in a deep voice he is making his character seem threatening, when all it really does is make him seem a bit simple.The plot deserves special mention, as it is idiotic beyond all belief. The 'heroes' don't think it overly strange that their hitchhiker threatens to kill them. The 'heroine' twice manages to miss seeing the villain when he is no more than a foot away from her. The villain gets past a police checkpoint (while wearing a shirt covered in blood, and a bloody head bandage) by showing the cops a burnt corpse in the passenger seat of the car he is driving. The villain is punched, clubbed with a shovel and stuck through with a pitchfork, but never seems to be impeded by these, rather serious, injuries. And don't even get me started on that terrible 'twist' ending. Sheesh.The only plus point in this film, for me, is Sang Mi Chu. Who is very pretty, but really no more than a mediocre actress.Overall, this film comes off like a poorly written, flaccidly acted and shockingly directed attempt to copy 'The Hitcher' and 'Spoorloos', but it fails at every turn due to a lack of talent in everyone involved.

There's nothing worse than renting an Asian movie and getting an American movie experience instead.It's only my opinion, but a good thriller is dependent upon the establishment of likable, intelligent characters. As far as likability is concerned, the protagonists in Say Yes are a quaint married couple. Nicely done. Unfortunately, they are stupid beyond belief. Let us count the ways they mishandle being terrorized by a stalker.1. After a hitchhiker threatens to kill you, be sure to tell him what hotel you're staying at when you drop him off.2. Beat the hell out of the stalker in broad daylight and in front of dozens of witnesses, thereby allowing him to press charges of assault.3. Don't bother telling the police about the stalker and simply assume (for no apparently good reason) that the cops were bribed by him.4. While trying to escape, let your lady out of your sight as much as possible to ensure that the stalker kidnaps her.5. After getting help from someone to find the stalker after kidnapping your wife, be sure to send them away as soon as possible so you can face him one-on-one. No point in being unfair, right? Now, I'd never expect that any person would be immune to making a few mistakes under these stressful conditions, but the characters in Say Yes are so dense and make so many unbelievable mistakes that it's effectively impossible for the viewer to care about their safety, since they are victims of their own doing. This kills the enjoyability of the entire film. In case you were wondering, the scriptwriters didn't stop with dim-witted characters. Since they themselves are surely dim-witted for writing this crapfest, they decided to make situations so absurdly unrealistic that all sense of reality goes out the window.1. The stalker kills a cop inside a police station – while the protagonist is asleep no more than ten feet away.2. The stalker engages in all sorts of dubious activities in broad daylight and around tons of people, yet no one other than the married couple seems to notice his odd behavior.3. The stalker survives an absurd amount of violence that would have killed any human being.4. The "suspense" scenes had no imagination whatsoever. In fact, some scenes were direct rip-offs from American movies.The only positive is the decapitation near the end, which was a pretty brutal scene since it was inflicted upon the wife. It's too bad the filmmakers followed it up with an outrageously stupid ending that comes out of left field.Truly, the Koreans behind the making of Say Yes should be ashamed of themselves. Better yet, they should just move to California and take employment with people who make movies with a similar disregard for quality and intelligence.

An argument could be made either way for Say Yes and either side would have legitimate points for loving/hating this film. I however, loved it. On the one hand, Say Yes is a overly melodramatic, silly film. On the other hand it's also a ultra violent, blood drenched, tension fest featuring a delightfully twisted villain.The film starts out rather slowly, telling us the story of Jeong-Hyun (Ju-hyuk Kim), a writer who just secured a publisher, and his beautiful wife Yoon-Hee (Sang Mi Chu). To celebrate their anniversary the couple decide to take a trip to Sokcho to see the winter beach. The romantic getaway is rudely interrupted by local psycho "M", a hitchhiker who terrorizes the couple. M (played wonderfully by Joong-Hoon Park) physically and mentally tortures the couple until the couple finally fight back. Which results in the inevitable disturbingly violent conclusion.The story does bare some similar plot points with 1986's The Hitcher but is not a re-make. It's more of a revision of Robert Harmon's classic film and it works well. Frankly, the film is more reminiscent of the old HK thrillers with exploitational violence and disturbing twists and turns. Director Sung-Hong Kim decided to play around with the formula and produced a film which is (all fault's aside) fun, disturbing, and suspenseful at the same time.The couple's performances are adequate, but M is the real reason to watch this film. Joong-Hoon Park is excellent as the calmly evil, psychopathic killer. His antagonist role holds the film together and after the first hour was up I wanted something seriously bad to happen to him. Simply put, M is a cold-hearted bastard and Joong-Hoon did a damn good job playing him. The couple's performances are decent, save a few overly melodramatic romance scenes that are in danger of becoming sappy. But they are played fairly straight out and you care enough about them to root for them.Let's get this straight though. Say Yes is one wild and bloody ride. There are some truly sadistic scenes in this film leading up to a very shocking-and bloody-conclusion. If brutal violence is your thing then check this out. If not, just be warned the last half of the film is extremely violent and disturbing. But this is one of the reason's why I loved it.The film does have some minor faults and one glaring one. First off, the major fault is that the couple truly make some stupid choices. I think most people wouldn't behave like this in similar situations. I had to dispel my sense of belief a few times during the film, thinking to myself, "No one would do that!" Aside from the main issue, my other gripe with Say Yes was that the film builds up to a climax that happens too early. The film's logical conclusion point comes thirty minutes from the end. Although irritating, the ensuing blood-bath that follows helps make up for it.Bottom Line- Overall a satisfying thriller. Good suspense, a great villain, and loads of bloody violence save the film from it's faults.

This movie begins well as the young couple are tricked into giving a ride to a sullen, brooding man. Tension mounts as the man is apparently stalking them after they finally get him out of their car. However, once it has been established that the passenger is dangerous--which happens within the first 30 minutes of the film, the movie is unable to maintain any real suspense. In lieu of suspense, we are given graphic violence. The torture scenes are extended, disturbing, and unnecessary and the battle that should have been the climax of the film comes 30 minutes to early. Everything that happens after that, which is meant to be shocking, comes across as anti-climactic and predictable. The final scene also seems so out of character for the person involved that it is ridiculous and should have been omitted. I left the theater with a headache.