Pretty Good

disgusting, overrated, pointless

How wonderful it is to see this fine actress carry a film and carry it so beautifully.

There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

In 1944, rivals for a man's affections, Keiko and Oki, ends tragically with a pair of pink ballerina shoes as a sort of prize for the victor through a tragic act of violence. 60 years later, the pink shoes are found by an embittered wife, Sun-jae(Hye-su Kim)who happened upon her husband having sex with another woman, on a subway train(..in the opening of this movie a girl removes the shoes from the hands of another dying horribly when her feet were somehow removed from her legs!). Moving to a rather modest, depressing flat, with daughter Tae-soo(Yeon-ah Park)in tow, Sun-jae possibly finds a new love with a kind, handsome, charming young architect, In-cheol(Seong-su Kim) constructing a new building she plans to work in. But, the shoes have such an allure so volatile that Sun-jae finds herself at odds with her own daughter over them..and there's a history(..and, especially baggage)that follows them which will truly cause nightmarish complications Sun-jae could never possibly imagine.Like a lot of these kinds of films, there's a complete backstory behind the shoes. They symbolize the tragic repercussions of adultery which will ultimately parallel Sun-jae's own story. But, more importantly, the director establishes, subtly, the results in taking what isn't yours. In this horror tale, when one takes the pink shoes from another they literally lose the feet they wear them on. This correlates with a mistress taking a husband from a wife. In the back story, it's shown that through treacherous Oki's removal of the shoes/husband from Keiko, she prospers and succeeds, but ultimately pays the price for her thievery. Circa 2004, the same goes for how the husband allows his mistress to wear Sun-jae's shoes while making love. But, there's another interesting twist that occurs between Tae-soo and Sun-jae regarding the fulfilling of roles with the shoes as a supernatural catalyst. This is a downer of a movie, I must tell you. We see how the tragedies of the past come back to haunt characters in the present. The ending, regarding the fates of those at the hands of Sun-jae, motivated by *another*, certainly left me stunned. Perhaps, it'll have the same effect with you.It seems that this film is interpreted by people differently, so I could be absolutely wrong with my assessment with this film. Some believe that Sun-jae is one of many characters. These theories give me a head ache, so see for yourself.

The film starts out a decent enough rip-off of Japanese horror, specifically (and painfully obviously) Dark Water and Ringu. Standard South Korean over-production, over-acting, and general pretension makes viewing difficult at times, but there does appear to be a salvageable horror film in the works. Then we get the Act II Freak Out, in which the main character hallucinates and talks to herself for no apparent reason, ala Tale of Two Sisters, followed by outright random s*** ala Ju-on, interspersed with implausible yet beautifully photographed flashbacks. Clichéd. Boring. Hamfisted. Incoherent. Just terrible.There is, however, a bright moment near the end of the film (actually, right where the film should have ended) that could have salvaged it. Just imagine if they had ripped off Samaritan Girl instead of outdated Japanese horror (and turned the pretense down about five notches--and hired a cinematographer who doesn't think he's shooting magazine ads). I actually thought for a moment that the Red Shoes may be only a C or D movie.Then they just had to go all the way. They had to shoot for total implausibility. We're talking over-the-top clichéd. Physically impossible. Totally unsupported by everything that precedes it. I don't even think it would qualify as a spoiler to tell you, because it's just that stupid. Just ask yourself, "Okay. What could the writer/director do at this point to ruin the film and make me lose all respect for him?" You've got it.F. Total waste. This is a film that makes you feel stupid for having watched it. It's like clicking on goatse.

The unrelenting power of Korean schlock horror, stunning photography, and a much revisited fairytale are the components of this colourful piece of work that goes that little bit further than the modern woman's obsession to spend a week's wages on nice footwear.There are a few flaws - the red shoes in question, for instance, are more fuchsia pink, there is a heavy reliance on far east stock-in-trades such as hags with hair hanging over their faces to look creepy, and I was unable to resist comparing the women fighting over said shoes to hobbits fighting over a Ring; but I'll leave all those Sméagol-becomes-Gollum analogies to Lord of the Rings addicts, and tell you that Red Shoes is an overlong but ingenious dose of blood and gore, with some beautiful dance scenes and vague psychological meditations on the nature of repressed greed, vengeful ghosts, and getting your legs chopped off at the ankles.The photography draws you in immediately. We enter a stark, brightly lit and virtual deserted subway station. The one thing that stands out are the bright 'red shoes', standing on a platform as if someone has stepped out of them onto a train. Two girls fight viciously over them. CGI's kick in nice and early with a trail of blood drawing itself up into the shoes. The second theme makes its appearance before the end of the opening titles as a ballerina goes through her beautiful and lyrical practice.Having set the tone, people start getting bumped off as the shoes start controlling events by controlling their wearer's desires. The have a strange magical power - the protagonist's daughter suddenly becomes a much better dancer after stealing them, but the shoes are inhabited by a curse that gets a bit nasty when someone takes them from the owner. Purists can concentrate to work out which scenes are hallucinations or dream sequences and which are not, while others just lean back and enjoy the bloodletting.We start with Sun-jae, who takes off from her wayward husband with her daughter Tae-soo. Sun-jae is an eye-doctor planning to own her own clinic, and soon strikes up a relationship with interior designer In-chul. She and her daughter fight over the shoes, which are then taken away by her friend who has an instant fancy for them. The friend has her eyeballs forked out for her trouble.The red shoes prove very hard to get rid of, even when they find the original owner. If you lose the plot half way through, you could do worse than simply enjoy the remarkable aesthetics - the wonderful glass shoe rack, the juxtaposition of horror and beauty, the wide-screen rendition which produces some effects unusual for a horror movie, the de-saturated backgrounds, the unusual framing that sticks in the memory - the sudden overhead shot of the table when Sun-jae is having dinner with the designer, or the beautiful shot of Sun-jae and Tae-soo bathing, like something from a classical painting.The dance digressions and occasional humour are sadly all too infrequent. "Fight quietly will you!? - the neighbours will call the police!" Or, replying to the mundane casual question, "What brand are they?" "Subway!" Instead, the constant scariness is eventually wearing. A change of pace, for instance, by developing the love-theme between Sun-jae and the designer, would have been most welcome.Towards the end I just wanted them to hurry up and wind up dead, although I liked the shoes falling through snowflakes and (in another scene) snowflakes made of blood. A theme that could have usefully been developed further is the idea of being "in the flow" as opposed to driven out of control by temptation and desire. The interior designer is one of the few people not affected by the shoes. He will only work when he "gets the vibe" and provides an almost protective force for Sun-jae. Yet attributing too much depth of meaning to what is basically a commercial horror-flick (the end-credits are interrupted to lay a foundation for Red Shoes II) is giving it too much credit: but if the current offering is too wacky for all except hard-core horror fans, the consummate artwork speaks of great potential and talent.

I'm in a quandary over this film. Like many other reviewers have amply illustrated here, this film is like a Korean Klone in lots of ways. It borrows moves from the Ringu play-book, the Dark Water play-book, the Ju-On play-book, The Eye play-book...please stop me. It's got a daughter and mother all alone in the world facing supernatural evil. It's got hunched-over, black-haired teens with bad attitudes and osteoporosis floating around upside-down and showing up in elevators. It's got the cheating hubby, the young love interest, the entrepreneurial "young Asian professional female" slowly losing her mind. Most importantly, it's got the requisite cursed artifact (not a wig, not a videotape, not a pair of transplanted corneas, but a swanky set of pink stilettos that a particular ghost doesn't want any mortal wearing).BUT GOSH DARN IT, I LIKED THIS FILM! I guess it says something if I feel compelled to excuse myself for this fact, but I really did care for the characters and the serious situation they are hopelessly trapped in. Indeed, I was hooked by the grue--people getting their feet forcibly removed gets my attention. The cinematography is colorful, and artful, and top notch--as we have come to expect from Korean directors. (Did you catch those cool on-purpose-out-of-focus shots? Fuzzy weirdness...) The music is actually pretty unique--the low-key guitar ditty that recurs off and on is melodic, and personal, and not overwrought. Yes, the plot "twists and turns" in terribly predictable ways: Could our protagonist really be the guilty one? Is it possible that we might find the answer to the horrible mystery by rifling through old newspaper copy in the library? Even though we've "properly buried" the red shoes with their owner, is it possible the evil will return nevertheless to wreak ultimate revenge? When we get to the end, will the decidedly downbeat narrative actually make very little sense? Yes, you've seen--and come to expect--it all.But, darn it, this flick is done with such panache in a very gutsy way. The characters are carefully drawn, the direction is solid. And when you get right down to it, America simply does not make films like this. I don't think America ever will again. We used to make great, sad, horror films, but not anymore. We real horror fans have got to rely on films like "Bunhongsin" to get our fix. In fact, that's precisely why I give this film the benefit of the doubt.