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Bookmark this pageA Bloody Aria (2006)
Director: Won Shin-yeon
Movie review
From Time Out London
Whatever irony you throw at the ordeal movie – or the horror psycho-thriller – they always make for a discomfiting, deliberately nasty, rollercoaster ride. But some, like ‘Polanski’s ‘Cul-de-Sac’, or ‘Michael Haneke’s ‘Funny Games’ for instance, have instructive method in their mayhem-filled madness; likewise director Won Shin-yun’s expertly directed ’Scope humiliation-fest – which sees a pointedly vain, not to say sexually-predatory, music professor and his ingénue charge marauded by four pyschopathic Seoul suburbanites – has enough elements of sharp social critique, cutting cultural comment and absurdist comedy to suggest it might function as an expiatory experience in its domestic market.Ripped from its home context, however, many of the subtleties are blunted – such as the references to the maddening, de-humanising influence of Korean militarism and elitist school stratification, manically lampooned here in the guise of four baseball bat-wielding loons. Still, Won pulls off a rare trick: to be funny and frightening while continuing to ratch the tension up and up. Performances, too, are top notch.
Author: Wally Hammond
Time Out London Issue 1992: October 23-29, 2008
Cast & crew
Director: Won Shin-yeon
Cast: Cha Ye-ryeon, Lee Byeong-jun, Dal-su Oh, Lee Mun-shik full cast
Genre(s): Thrillers
Rated: 15
Duration: 115 mins
UK Release: Oct 24 2008
US Release: Jan 4 2008
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