Dead Man's Shoes

Revenge (in movies at least) is a dish best served simple. Park Chan Wook director of Oldboy understands this and from the looks of Dead Man's Shoes understands it really well too. We get straight to the act of revenge itself and it works really well.

Both Shane and Park understands that after a certain amount of time is spent establishing the reason for the act of violence, we want to just see the damn bastards get their come uppance. Here we are told the reason behind the revenge in a series of flash backs told in black and white. What ever pity you have for one of the victims will be replaced with satisfaction as their acts of what they did are shown as the flash backs reveals more and more of their dirty deeds committed against the protagonist's brother. If you feel some of the acts meted out are too harsh then, to appreciate it this show has got to be followed to the end where the violence done to them are justified in a semblance of a twist. Just hold your judgement on whether the violence is justified till the end. Will not give anything away here just watch it. Ain't no sixth sense class twist but it's sufficient here.

4 out of 5

Save the green planet

This is one movie that almost succeeds in blending the most genres I have ever seen in a movie! What I like here: editing is top notch keeping the pulse on the suspense all throughout. Expectation that I had about each turn throughout the movie was mostly subverted. This movie being of a South Korean origin also succeeds in being bloody more than most of the other English movies I have seen. Is it as bloody and gory as "I saw the Devil"? No. Does it serve the story line and does the violence feel justified ? Yes. Story in a nutshell ? Guy believes that a rich industrialist is actually an alien and has been sent to earth to perform experiments on humans, guy is also a meth addict, nice curve thrown in to make the protagonist point of view an unreliable one, but is it really that unreliable and would the reveal of each truth along the way go to prove the protagonist as more of a nut job or will it finally reveal us the unbelieving viewers as audiences lacking faith ? Well both. Trust me you just have to watch it to know what I mean.

Tell me now was it good ? Think as I may I can't answer that. There are just too many genres mixed in here for me to blanket everything under one answer. It mixes thriller, crime, sci-fi and horror all rolled into one giant salami and serves it to you. I can tell you this, for me it really worked as a thriller keeping me on the edge most of the time with it's brilliant editing. Really could care less about the Sci-Fi ending that it took a turn to which seems almost comical and for me that sort of brought it down a notch. I must say though the ability and the gall of the director plus the writer of this movie to attempt something like this is definitely worth the price of admission for me! 3.5 stars out of 5