Deranged (2012)

Also known as: Yeongasi
Country: South-Korea
Format: movie
Genre: thriller, horror
Cast: Kim Myung Min, Mun Jung Hee, Kim Dong Wan, Lee Honey (Lee Ha Nui), Eom Ji Seong, Yeom Hyum Seo, 
Synopsis:  Jae Hyuk was once a professor in biochemistry, but due to wrong investment he has lost his reputation and money. His younger brother Jae Pil, who advised him to enter into stock market, is working as a detective in order to pay the money back to his brother. One day a dead body is found in river and by the next day the Han river is covered with weird looking bodies. As investigation is on, they discover that these deaths are cause by mutant parasitic horsehair worm/ yeongasi, who controls its victims brain to make it eat for days, then drink only water until the victim drowns himself/herself into water.
Rating: 3/5
Rather unique way to use people's fright - in 2009 there was a documentary about hairworm shown in Korea, which led to all kind of thoughts about what happens if human get infected? For your information, this kind of parasite does exist, but it is only on insects. And this is the background information why director Park Jung Woo started to search more about it and did a movie like this. The biggest emphasis is put on making things realistic and I admit that it seems realistic.

Main character Jae Hyuk, played by Kim Myung Min, is disappointed in life and because of that he is mad at everybody. He was the perfect example of when things do not go well, then they won't turn out well even if you have tried for already 5th time! One of my friends actually commented after the whole room had been silent for too long that he did not understand if the whole point of this was to be as depressing as it can, because it was reeeeeaaaalllly depressing. I more think that the scriptwriter and director of the movie were not able to choose out the one way how Jae Hyuk could get the medicine for his family, so they decided to put all options into the movie. What a great idea, if only it would not be so hopeless. Of course, that was able to make me cry for a moment, because you can actually feel the love between the family members. What if such a disaster would happen to your family? would you not give your best even if you can hardly recognize your family?

Kim Dong Wan played the part of Jae Pil, brother who is working at detective company, man who is almost hated by everyone, but in the end does everything for his brother. I actually liked his character the most, because he cared about other people and he was rather good detective. I felt like he was the only one who brought in at least a bit of sun into the movie. Even though I am familiar with Korean bands and music, I did not recognize that he is a member of Shinwa.

I was a bit fascinated by Lee Honey - if you do not know, then she was Miss Korea 2006, the 3rd runner-up to Miss Universe 2007, but it was not her first time acting. Her role as Yun-Joo is so annoying that it is brilliant. Every scientific movie needs one character who is the "Mother of morality" - and that's exactly who Yun-Joo is. Even when the time is running up, she is trying to hold back the crew just because "we do not know what consequences might come with medicine which has not been tried out yet. I was like "SERIOUSLY?! There are two options at the moment - you try to save them and see the outcome or you just let them die anyway." Of course her actions turned out great, but she was still annoying.

Compared to the actual story, it is much interesting to read about the making of the movie. For the dead bodies they actually used specially made dummies, who need rescuing from the water after some minutes, because the dummies started to drown, but after rescuing them, they froze within 5 minutes, because the movie was filmed in winter and early spring.
One last thing - I would not call this movie so much of a "HORROR", because for me horror movies are connected to supernatural-ghost-psychokillers, but "Deranged" is a story of human actions, which can happen in real life. You may say that it is total utopia, but just search how many things have become real which were "utopia" 50-100 years ago. Well, I hope you will watch the movie yourself and give me your opinions on it!