Hansel & Gretel (2007)

Country: South-Korea
Format: movie
Genre: mystery, drama, horror
Cast: Chun Jung Myung, Eun Won Jae, Shim Eun Kyung, Jin Ji Hee, Park Hee Soon, Kim Kyeong Ik, Jang Jeong Nam, Koh Joon Hee,  Lydia Park,
Synopsis: Eun Soo makes a car accident while arguing with his pregnant girlfriend over the phone on the way to see his sick mother. He gets lost in the woods until he is found by a young girl who brings him to her family home in the deep forest. There is plenty of food, warm fireplace and 3 children are just adorable, but something seems to be off - the phone-line is down for days, mother and father from the family suddenly disappear and no matter which way Eun Soo walks, he always gets back to the "House of Happy children".
Rating: 2/5
This movie has a lot of different emotions - there are moments of comedy, depression, horror and compassion. I really liked it most of the time but the end got too lingering and depressive that it made stars fall as if there were a meteor shower.

All three child actors shined in their roles. They all were much better than the grown-up actors. Their emotions and expressions were all in right moment and it was pleasant to watch and of course at the times really spooky to watch. Eun Won Jae acts the part of Man Bok - the family's son, who seems to be the evilest of them all, because he can do almost everything with his mind. The fact that he has really short-temper makes him even scarier. At the same time, Shim Eun Kyung plays the older daughter, whose power I did not understand or did not notice much.

Young Hee is the calmest, may be due to the fact that she is said to have really weak health. I did not understand much, but it also seemed that she thought the most about other possibilities, because she plays a really important role through out the movie. The last child Jeong Sun is played by Jin Ji Hee. She is the usual cute kid with spooky hairstyle. I started to wonder how such cute and young actress was allowed to play in this movie. I literally freaked out when she was destroying another toy rabbit! Jeong Sun has the power of giving life to lifeless things like dolls (she is the one who makes your toys move around at nights)

The"so-called" main character Eun Soo has not turned out as great as they wanted, because moslty he is more like a side-character, but only with the fact that his story is retold in the movie. Chun Jung Myung's acting is another thing that tears his character down - he has through out the movie the same face expression, so you really do not get what he thinks, because there is so much happening all the time, but at the same time it feels like nothing changes.

I admit that I covered my eyes more than once because actually I  am a really big scaredy-cat when it comes to horror movies. Bu fortunately and unfortunately it is not as dreadful as I thought and hoped it will be. Like most of the horror movies connected to children has "Hansel and Gretel" a sad, pitiful and unfair background why children are making this crazy nightmare. This time it is about child abuse and raping - subject that no one likes or wants to see. (Seriously, how can this kind of people even exist? that is just way too sick!) which leads us to the annoying end too, but read about it from Spoiler review.

I really liked that they made mind and willpower into the strongest thing, because I believe too that human is possible for making everything if they just have the strong belief in it really happening. For a while, I even thought that maybe, just maybe, everything is only in someone's mind and nothing really happens, but then it got too complicated again..
Even though it was not the scariest or unpleasant movie, I will never recommend this movie to people under 13 - I think I have a life-time trauma of toy bunnies. Like with all "horror-movies" - some love it, some don't - I find it rather.. surreal and usual.
btw. There are more known fairytales made into horror movies in South-Korea.  

SPOILER review: Just a bit before the end.. there is sooooooooo long scene about one thing - dialogue between the kids and Eun Soo. He says that he must leave because he is waited and the children must move on with their lives and the children just repeat "We are not bad children. we are good children. Please, do not leave us. Stay with us! etc" and that goes on and on and on for several minutes. I do not know if they tried to fill the screen time with it but it was rather boring an depressive for the whole watching crew we had in the room. They could have made it normal and short and it would not have lost 1-2 stars. You may say I am too harsh, but it mattered to me.