Deadly Numbered – Weekend
[ad_1]
In the Russian box office – “Ghost Station”, a mystical horror from South Korea, filmed according to the script of Hiroshi Takahashi, who had a hand in the classic Japanese “The Ring”. The cult horror of 1998 was also released for the first time in Russian cinemas, and two films are shown in cinemas in parallel. Let’s figure out why the mystical bottomless well is not as scary in Seoul as it was in Izu a quarter of a century ago.
On a warm summer night at the Oksu metro station, a young man waiting for a train towards home notices a drunken girl dancing. The platform is empty, the train is still wandering somewhere in the underground labyrinth, and the young man is having fun: it’s not every night that Korean women throw off social modesty in public – albeit darkly deserted – places. He immediately shares a remarkable event in the chat – and in the heat of the correspondence does not notice how the girl disappears in an unknown direction. Deciding to check where the stranger disappeared, the midnight passenger finds his death without waiting for the train.
From this urban legend, included in the horror almanac of Horan, the author of scary webtoons (Korean Internet comics), the film of Jung Yong Gi grew. However, it is much more remarkable that the script was written by Hiroshi Takahashi, co-author of Hideo Nakata’s iconic The Ring, who also collaborated with another Japanese horror legend, Kiyoshi Kurosawa (Snake Path, 1998; Premonition, 2017). Ironically, Takahashi’s most famous and latest works were released on the same day in Russia – and from such a neighborhood, “Ghost Station” only loses more.
Horan’s horror story is true to the short form of horror: some will say – a legend, others – a bike around the fire, others – creepy paste. Mutating with the technologies and consciousness of mankind, the background fear of the invisible, unknown and inevitable finds new ways to penetrate the carefully built comfort of the layman. The history of the Oksu station in the almanac is side by side with mystical sketches about a playground, a foggy gas station and a street where a girl who was returning home alone at night meets a woman with her knees backwards. The laconism and schematism of the webtoon play into the hands of platitudes: I opened it, quickly flipped through, got scared – everything for the plot, everything for alarm.
In the cinema, such a trick will not work: both the hero, and the location, and the evil spirits need to minimally prove themselves – at least indicate the rules of the game. Replete with Japanese meteorological features and 1990s design cues, The Ring had no problem with that, and the understatement of an urban legend gained shocking power amid a boom in videotapes that invited otherworldly malice into every home. It must be said that neither the director nor the screenwriter succeeded in repeating the success formula: for example, Nakata’s English-language “Chat” (2010), which promised a heart attack from visiting the Internet, aroused bewilderment among the grateful public.
Takahashi also tried in every possible way to evoke the spirit of former glory, but in the “Ghost Station” he completely got on the old rails, leaving, however, Horan’s scene almost unchanged – as a prologue to the film. Less smut in the chat, which the unfortunate exchanged with colleagues, plus a bloody denouement, not hidden by a black screen with the caption “The End”. True, everyone safely forgets about the spectacular beginning – after all, the events shown in it will occur only “a month later”; there will be no happy ending. In fact, the engine of the story is the journalist Na Young (Kim Bo Ra), who works in a tabloid, but dreams of changing society for the better. The bosses are more interested in views and hot topics that the young woman has trouble with: an innocent selection of “summer beauties” flaunting stylish outfits turns into a lawsuit from a trans woman, whom Na Yeon captured, taking a drunken nod for agreement. Now the journalist needs a few hits to cover the legal expenses of the editorial office, and here suicide at the Oksu station comes in handy. Needless to say, there is a powerful curse behind the state of emergency, with which mysterious children with serial numbers infect random passers-by.
The familiar plot about a journalist against the other world in the scenery of modern South Korea does without any special know-how: over a quarter of a century, technology has developed so much that the classic khton should be more frightening than any updates. Yes, circulation has given way to views (a term with a slight otherworldly flair), but the pursuit of hype mixed with the desire to get to the bottom of the truth is a virus much more tenacious than smallpox from the Call universe. What can not be said about the desire to scare the disfigured faces with sharp large grains and another well with a terrible secret – here Takahashi’s self-repetitions border on autocaricature. In itself, this is not a big sin, but “Ghost Station” is too much like a drama – a television series filmed in the shortest possible time, where plots are often more important than directing and visual decisions (except for the emphasis on Na Young’s shoes – also hello to Nakata’s iconic tape).
One important difference between the fears of Japan in 1998 and today’s South Korea, Hiroshi Takahashi seems to suggest, by appealing to the insult not of a unique girl, but, in fact, of an entire generation. The Oksu station was built in the 1980s, a time of economic growth, due to which fewer Korean parents began to give children up for adoption to European families, hoping to at least save them from the horrors and consequences of the war with the DPRK. However, over the decade, the figure still reached almost 100 thousand – according to the film “Return to Seoul” (2022), which shows the difficulties of self-identification that Koreans who grew up in France, for example, go through. What to say about those who are less fortunate. Meanwhile, it is necessary to do this – no matter how much you want to wall up an uncomfortable topic. Or at least transfer this unbearable, damned burden to another.
In theaters from 31 August
Subscribe to Weekend channel in Telegram
[ad_2]
Source link
