"Anesthesia Awareness" is a condition when anesthesia fails during surgery, leaving the patient completely conscious and feeling every incision, but paralyzed and incapable of doing anything about it. More than 60,000 people domestically each year experience this rare phenomenon, which become a central idea to Korean psychothriller “Return” aka “Wide Awake”. “Return” is one of this year summer season K-horror which continue the trend of thrillers that unleashes major twists and turns during the climatic moments of the film like what have been presented in “Black House”, “The Cut” or “The World of Silence”. The debuting director Lee Gyu-man tried to build the suspense from the mind of an Anesthesia Awareness victim who became a psychophat in the way to be rid from his trauma. The script cleverly played on the characters area, keep the audience guessing who’s the real culprit from several characters in the story which will bring us to a smart double twist toward the ending that widely reveals all the suspicions. Korean version region 3 DVD for this labyrinthine plot movie where everyone can becomes a suspect, now is ready for release and suit everybody who’s interested with an unexpected mystery thriller which will keep you guessing right to the very end.
The movie start with an incident in 1982, a 9 year old Sang-woo, expiriences "Anesthesia Awareness" during his own heart surgery, even though he was administered the normal amount of anesthesia. After the operation, he claims that he has been conscious throughout the surgery but can’t move any muscle or scream to tell anyone, he feels the knife slowly cuts open his chest an the doctor rearranges the organ inside him. But no one believes the traumatized little boy, even his own parents. As a result, after the incident, Sang-woo grows with an odd and rude behavior, the child also ends up brutally murdering a young girl who is his schoolmate. His parent who can’t control his weird manner anymore, then have to placed their only son in a mental institution, where several psychiatrists decide to use some radical treatment methods in order to cure him. Twenty years later, a surgeon by the name of Ryu Jae-woo (Kim Myeong-min) notices a series of gruesome murders involving medical personnel.
Even his life was being harassed by threatening phone calls from a former patient of his, Lee Myeong-seok (Kim Roe-ha), who blames him for his wife’s death during an operation and threat to kill Ryu’s wife, Heui-jin (Kim Yu-mi). Next, things are get even more complicated when a closest childhood friend of Ryu’s, the suspicious-looking Gang Uk-hwan (Yu Jun-sang) suddenly returns to Korea from U.S and pays him a visit, Gang seems upset when Ryu can’t remember their childtime vow of blood brotherhood. Ryu also has a trouble with his anesthetist partner, Jang Seok-ho (Jeong Yu-seok), in a different opinion about Ryu’s idea on using hypnosis rather than anesthesia during a difficult surgery, Jang against the idea partly because its been recommended by a strange hypnotherapy speacialist, Oh Chi-hun (Kim Tae-woo) who is seem knows Jang’s past little secret. When Heui-jin becomes suddenly collapses with an inexplicable fever, she was taken to the emergency room and they found a mysterious object in her stomach. It has no choice but perform a surgery to bring out the thing, Ryu who is reluctant to operate on his wife was forced to lead the operation when there isn’t time to get another surgeon, but things go horribly wrong.
Product Details:
Product Title:Return (DVD) (Limited Edition) (Korea Version)
Actors:Kim Myeong-min, Yu Jun-sang, Kim Tae-woo, Jeong Yu-seok, Kim Yu-mi, Kim Roe-ha, Baek Seung-hwan.
Directors: Lee Gyu-man
Format: Anamorphic Widescreen 2.35:1, Color, NTSC
Language: Korean
Subtitle: English, Korean
Audio Specs: Korean Dolby Digital 5.1
Region: Region 3 South East Asia (including Hong Kong, S. Korea and Taiwan)
Number of discs: 2
Country Made:South Korea
Genre: Suspense-Thriller
Feature Film Running Time: 113 Minutes
Distributor: Enter One
Release Date: December 5, 2007 (Order your copy now!)
DVD Special Features:
- Audio Commentary by Director & Casts
- After Audio Commentary
- Behind The Scenes (36 mins)
- Art Design
- Charaters Images
- Costume Design
- Intra-operative Awareness
- Making of Music
- Conti Images
- Music Video
- Deleted Scenes (DD 5.1 Audio + 90 mins)
Operation Rating: 7/10
Other Medical Related Thrilling DVD: The Cut, Epitaph, Black House
A little review for Return:
Script's main trick is to keep the audience guessing as to which of the protags is actually the adult Sang-woo -- especially as it becomes clear through flashbacks that Sang-woo has been murdering everyone connected with his disastrous operation as a boy. Double twist near the end is clever, though its execution is dramatically a tad clumsy. Putative lead Kim Myeong-min is OK as the troubled Ryu, though the supporting thesps grab most of the character honors. Kim Tae-woo ("Woman Is the Future of Man") is especially good as the smoothly confidant shrink. Tech package is clean and chilly, to the usual Korean high standards. Original title translates as "Return," but pic is now being sold internationally as "Wide Awake." (Review by Derek Elley, taken from “Variety”)
Source: YesAsia, Hancinema (Photos)
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No Doubt if Pang Brothers are the productive and busiest filmmakers in Asia right now, just count how many movies they had produced lately. After Danny Pang solo project “Forest of Death” released in the home cinema market, now it’s time for the brother, Oxide Pang, his new movie “The Detective” which has just open widely in Asia last October, now is getting packed to home cinema version and “The Detective Hong Kong Version DVD” has scheduled to release this November 22, 2007. The movie was made a strong opening when its release in Hong Kong and other Asian country cinema, it does also get quite good reviews from some of the film critics. Starred by Hong Kong romantic pop idol for many years, Aaron Kwok, who’s now turn to be a characterize actor, started when he get best actor award for his best performances in “Divergence” and “After This Our Exile”.The story moves around Tam (Aaron Kwok), a broke private detective. One day, a man with nickname Fatty requested Tam to spy on a lady named Sum who wanted to kill him. This guy left Tam a picture of the lady and his offer with less of information. Tam could not refuse to accept the enticement of Fatty’s offer and then he begins the investigation. First Tam tries to collect some clues of Sum’s whereabouts from store keepers where Sum was appeared on the photograph. Tam is told to looking for Sum’s mahjong playmate, which may be able to help him. When he arrives at the first playmate’s home named Ming, Tam is dazed to find out that Ming hung himself at the living room.
In Ming’s cell phone he finds a few photos and recognized Ying, another mahjong playmate in the store. Tam believes Ying is innocent but gather clues that Ming’s business associate, Fong may be involved. Tam goes after the clues and found Fong’s address, but Fong also found dead in his house. Tam’s friend, police officer Jack verifies both deaths are suicide cases due to huge debts. But the most contradicting and puzzling part which Tam has found that large amount of cash are establish at the two victims’ residences. Becomes more intrigued with this complicated case, his investigation finally bring him to Fatty who’s actually the two victims’ common business partner and his real name was Choi.
Choi who strike with panic wanted to kill himself and before he leaps off the building of his apartment, he uttered ‘leave me alone!’ with a frightened face. Tam gathers that all these suicides are not normal with more and more victim falls in the hand of the “invisible murderer”. The detective must run against the time to protect the next target and uncover the mystery or curse behind the recent deaths, with the photo as the only clue.
Product Details:
Product Title: The Detective (DVD) (Hong Kong Version)
Actors: Aaron Kwok, Liu Kai Chi, Jo Koo.
Directors: Oxide Pang
Format: Widescreen (Anamorphic), Color, NTSC
Language: Cantonese, Mandarin
Subtitle: English, Traditional Chinese, Simplified Chinese
Audio Specs: Digital Surround 5.1, Dolby Digital 2.0
Region: Region 3 South East Asia (including Hong Kong, S. Korea and Taiwan)
Number of discs: 1
Country Made: China (Hong Kong)
Genre: Suspense-Thriller
Feature Film Running Time:
Distributor:
Release Date: November 22, 2007 (Order your copy now!)
Another Theory of The Detective:I've said before that the works of the Pang brothers are hit and miss, then again it's not always easy to think up of original creative work to wow an audience each time. I enjoyed their earlier film "Bangkok Dangerous
", and in between they did the popular Eye franchise movies. While recent works like "Re-cycle" and "The Messengers" for Hollywood were mediocre at best, I can never forget "Diary" which was below par at best. Sometimes in trying to hard to surprise an audience with smart twists, it ends up backfiring and dragging out the final act, and unfortunately that's what happens to The Detective, essentially an Aaron Kwok vehicle in an almost one man show for the most parts. If you think he didn't deserve his acting award for “Divergence” then this other detective role provided him the necessary platform for him to show off his range of skills in handling dramatic material. Not since Inside Man did the opening credit sequence song got me grooving to the beat. Thai song Me Panda provided the perfect start to The Detective, accentuating the Chinese title that Kwok's character is a C+ grade private investigator at best, as he operates and lives in a grimy home office in the gritty streets of an unnamed Thai city, definitely not having made it big. The introduction plays out like typical detective noir, where potential business comes knocking, and provides the catalyst and spark to everything else that follows in the investigations.
Kwok's Tam is obsessive in his doggedness to get to the bottom of mysteries, though often his theories get debunked through very obvious and superficial logic. And as a reward to the audience, proving these theories is where the fun begins, as you get engaged in this investigative journey with Tam, and through his eyes, sieve through the multitudes of red herrings, courtesy of the numerous supporting acts, that get thrown your way. Most times it involves some pursuit, and I felt that the repetitiveness of it all within the same sequence took away some of its shine. But what was top notch was the building up of anticipation. Here's where the Pang bag of tricks gets dipped into again, with tight camera angles complimenting the gorgeously gritty, dirty surroundings, and punctuated with excellent sound design that builds perfect tension. You might identify these tricks as the usual from their horror movies, but when translated over for a crime thriller, they work just as well, if not better this time round. The mystery that plays out might be just plain straightforward and ordinary, if not for the sound to add an extra dimension. And here's where I found some issue with the billing of the movie as a supernatural thriller. On its own without any supernatural elements, it will probably still work, though that's not what you come to expect from a Pang brother(s) work right? However with the karmic and the spiritual worked in and for the most parts being absent from the narrative, it somehow lent itself to drag the ending a tad too long, and repeated some of the obvious just to reinforce, or in an extreme, force fitted these elements in. Without these references, I felt there were enough nice touches within the development and revelation of the mystery, though it did sag somewhere in the mid section before picking itself up again.
The Detective is still recommended for the visuals, sound design and Kwok's charismatic one man show, and I must add it does have a pretty nifty special effects shot during a revelation which impressed me. It tied up the loose ends pretty much, and while I don't see there being a sequel, there certainly is much potential to the character. (Review by Stefan Shih which taken from Moviexclusive)
Source: YesAsia
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“Someone Behind You” aka “Two People” or “Du Saramida” in its Korean title has released in South Korea last August as one of summer K-horror fest along with “Evil Twin”, “The Cut”, “Black House”, “Muoi” and “Epitaph”. Now this horror thriller which loosely based on a best selling comic book titled “Two People” get its home cinema version release following several K-horror previously which had released before on DVD. The comic that created by popular sci-fi graphic novel artist Kang Kyung Ok, tells a story about an old family curse that marking one person dead at the hands of two people in every generation, did it sound like a good and original plot? The film directed by Oh Ki Hwan (The Art of Seduction) who wants to follow the success of Korean movie which based from comic books like “Tazza” and “200 Pounds Beauty”. Oh tried staying true to comic genre and provide “Someone” as a bloodbath thriller and surprisingly become one brutal movie by its gory visuals and chilling audio effects.
Ga-in (Yoon Jin Suh, A Day For An Affair) is a typical Korean teenage girl with good grades and several friends. Her life couldn’t be happier cause she had a good-looking boyfriend Hyun Joong (Lee Ki Woo, Sad Movie), a sister who's also her best friend and a family that loves her very much. Her beautiful life suddenly turn upside down and it began when she attends her aunts wedding and witnessing she get thrown off from the balcony. The more horrifying is when she come to the hospital and found her youngest aunt cruelly slashed out her almost in a coma aunt in front of her eyes. From that day she began to encounters more series of deadly, unexplainable occurrences in her life.
It seems as if everyone suddenly has an urge to kill her, either from jealousy or by pure hatred.
Her book worm classmate tries to stab her to death with a pair of scissors, her fencing teacher tries to kill her in the girl’s locker room, even her own mother attempt to kill her. By this time, Ga-in realizes that something is just not right and starts to found a fact that she is singled out as the next in line to die from the curse that has one person in each generation die at the hands of two people close to them. Meanwhile, watching her suspicion is Suk Min (Park Ki Woong, My Tutor Friend 2), a mysterious boy rumored to have murdered his own father who seems to know more than he's willing to tell about Ga-in problems. He teaches Ga-in that the only way to survive the odd circumstances is to trust no one and then he try to help her searching for the truth about the bizarre family curse that has marked Ga-in dead by two people in her life. Now all she needs to do is identify the two killers. But who are they?
Someone Behind You (DVD) (Limited Edition) (Korea Version)
Special Features from the two discs:
Disc 1:
- Commentary Track by Director Oh Ki Hwan, Yoon Jin Suh, Lee Ki Woo, Park Ki Woong
- After Commentary
Disc 2:
- Behind The Scenes
- Character Footages
- Making Of Art, Props, Make-Up
- Comparisons between Original Comic and film
- "I Am Marked For Death"
- Deleted Scenes
- Poster Shooting Scenes
- Premiere Night Screening
- Theatrical Trailer
Product Details:
Product Title: Someone Behind You (DVD) (DTS) (Limited Edition) (Korea Version)
Actors: Yoon Jin Suh, Lee Ki Woo, Park Ki Woong.
Directors: Oh Ki Hwan
Format: Widescreen 1.85:1 (Anamorphic), Color, NTSC
Language: Korean
Subtitle: Korean, English
Audio Specs: Digital Surround 5.1, Dolby Digital 2.0
Region: Region 3 South East Asia (including Hong Kong, S. Korea and Taiwan)
Number of discs: 2
Country Made: South Korea
Genre: Horror-Thriller
Feature Film Running Time: 84 Minutes
Distributor: KD MEDIA
Release Date: November 15, 2007 (Order your copy now!)
Source: YesAsia, Hancinema (Photos)
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The movie “Epitaph” has released last august in Korea and goes to release in another Asian country on October with subtitled “The Last Breath”. Now this K-horror is on the way to being one member of your home cinema collections with its release on DVD format which expected this November 29. The plot and storyline of “Epitaph” will goes a little different with other K-horror which you’ve ever seen before, co-directed by two breakthrough directors the Jung Brothers, which divided their movie into three different stories that have a connection on each other. With this movie, Jung Brothers or Jung Sik and Jung Bum-sik were honored with the New Director award at the Pusan Film Critic Awards and also received their first international recognition when “Epitaph” screened in the 2007 San Sebastian International Film Festival. This is a horror movie with finesse cinematography, intriguing plot, great acting and amazing set where it approximately is in the hospital (another Korean horror set in the hospital after "The Cut") on the year of 1940’s when Seoul was in the long occupation of Japanese.
The story opens in 1979, when Dr. Park receives an old photo album from his 20’s in 1941, the scene which begin the mysterious journey through these three stories one by one, set in Ahn Seng Hospital in Kyung Sung, the capital of 1940’s Japan occupied Korea. A hospital that representing both side of the Japanese imperialism glories and the western modernization. A hospital that stood strongly in the center of the city, and the one that will become the witness of all the weird and horrifying events which will happens inside it. The first hospital tale will revolve around the life of Jung-Name, who was bound by his parents to marry a girl whom he never met which probably is the daughter of the hospital director. When he takes his first night duty at the morgue, he’s facing with breathtaking beauty of a teenager girl corpse who was committed suicide. Her beauty and sadly story behind the tragedy throw Jung-Name in a love feeling with her dead body, this all that will take Jung-Name to revealing his own dazzling destiny. The second tale is about a young girl named Asako, she was the only survivor in one deadly car accident that oddly enough doesn’t causing any physical damage on her but left her whole family died.
A psychiatrist named Soo-In tried to cure her suffering from seeing the dead every night after the tragic event. That when he learns about the young girl fatal jealousy against her own mother over the stepfather. The last hospital tale will take on the journey of two married couple doctors that will go across the two previous odd stories. Dong Won and In Young whose return to the hospital from their studies in Tokyo, but they were soon falling into a world of confusion and fear when they discover something evil is waiting beneath the hospital. One night, Dong Won following his wife who gets out of bed at midnight and witnesses her doing something very horribly which also will brings on their agony from the past.
Epitaph Limited Korean Version DVD will come with the following extra features:
* Audio Commentary by the Director and Main Actors
* Deleted Scenes
* Director's Interview
* Actors' Interview
* Art Director's Interview
* Production Process
* Making Of Screenplay
* FAKE Documentary
* Production Announcement
* Art Set
* Theatrical Trailer and TV Advertisement
Product Details:
Product Title: Epitaph (DVD) (DTS) (Limited Edition) (Korea Version)
Actors: KIM Tae-woo, KIM Bo-kyung, JIN Goo, LEE Dong-kyu.
Directors: Jung Sik and Jung Bum-sik
Format: Widescreen 1.85:1 (Anamorphic), Color, NTSC
Language: Korean
Subtitle: Korean, English
Audio Specs: Digital Surround 5.1, Dolby Digital 2.0
Region: Region 3 South East Asia (including Hong Kong, S. Korea and Taiwan)
Number of discs: 2
Country Made: South Korea
Genre: Horror
Distributor: S.M. Pictures
Release Date: November 29, 2007 (Order your copy now!)
Another Movie Review (Warning! Spoiler ahead):
To brand Epitaph under the horror genre is not exactly right. It's more in line with the romance genre with a unhealthy focus on the undying type of love. Since Epitaph is segmented into 3 such stories and let’s review each of them individually. The first segment comprises of the start and the end of the whole movie. It begins with the hospital director, Jung-Name recounting events that occurred back in 1941 when he was just an intern at the morgue. He was betrothed to the director's daughter but was strangely attracted to a corpse of a beautiful teenager girl who committed suicide. In a movie that had similar theme to the weirdness of twilight zone, this segment packs the most bizarre revelation in this movie. However, the whole process took such a long time to unravel with very few scary moments that it seems that this whole movie is anti-scariness and pro long draggyness. While it might be fine for those who purchased the ticket for a drama genre type of movie, those who came to be spook might just nod off at the beautifully but overwhelming slow and tiresome shot scenes. After the first story come to a pause, the pace of the movie took a sharp turn. If the first tale was low on scares, the second one went overdrive to spook the viewers. In the second tale, we are treated to the little girl, Asako's horrific experience of staying in a hospital after a terrible accident that took away her parents' lives. While the haunting seems scary and bizarre, if one understand motivation among characters and family love in cinematic sense, it's not that difficult to get underneath the fright mechanization to see what's driving the scary nightmares in the hospital. It could easily be the scariest tale of trio but the biggest draw in this segment is the presentation of the strong parental love between mother and a daughter. What detracts this segment was the unnecessary additional twist of fate for the little girl’s psychiatrist, Soo-In. The essence of the second tale was already effectively translated from the screen to the audience and it wasn’t necessary to drag the audience through another round of gruesome mayhem. This form continues to the final story in Epitaph which denoted the misadventure of the married couple doctors, Dong-Won and In-Young. The young married couple had just return from their Avant-Garde brain operation from Japan and when they return back to Korea, a series of killings targeted the Japanese soldiers occupying in Korea. Compare to the second segment, the third segment overdose with twisted revelation on top of another. It felt that the storyteller was desperately trying to elevate this average tale to something more memorable but it backfires instead. This segment utilized one of the most interesting cinematography way of capturing shadow but it’s also has one of the most glaring use of computer generated effect which made some of the shadow effect look fake and cheap. The last problem it had was how it tried to link this three different horror tales together in a jigsaw puzzle manner. While some films was able to do it effectively like Crazy Stone where it successfully show how one person’s seemly innocent action would affect another persona greatly, Epitaph simply lack the fineness to do so. It will make the non passive viewers to try to figure out what's the point of linking these segments together and the result would be a disappointing zero. Personally, this film was actually good enough on it’s own without the disguise as a horror genre and trying too hard in its multiple endings or linkage. It’s a pity as it had potential in its set production, characters, story and cast.
Review by Richard Lim Jr. From Moviexclusive
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The movie start with an incident in 1982, a 9 year old Sang-woo, expiriences "Anesthesia Awareness" during his own heart surgery, even though he was administered the normal amount of anesthesia. After the operation, he claims that he has been conscious throughout the surgery but can’t move any muscle or scream to tell anyone, he feels the knife slowly cuts open his chest an the doctor rearranges the organ inside him. But no one believes the traumatized little boy, even his own parents. As a result, after the incident, Sang-woo grows with an odd and rude behavior, the child also ends up brutally murdering a young girl who is his schoolmate. His parent who can’t control his weird manner anymore, then have to placed their only son in a mental institution, where several psychiatrists decide to use some radical treatment methods in order to cure him. Twenty years later, a surgeon by the name of Ryu Jae-woo (Kim Myeong-min) notices a series of gruesome murders involving medical personnel.
Even his life was being harassed by threatening phone calls from a former patient of his, Lee Myeong-seok (Kim Roe-ha), who blames him for his wife’s death during an operation and threat to kill Ryu’s wife, Heui-jin (Kim Yu-mi). Next, things are get even more complicated when a closest childhood friend of Ryu’s, the suspicious-looking Gang Uk-hwan (Yu Jun-sang) suddenly returns to Korea from U.S and pays him a visit, Gang seems upset when Ryu can’t remember their childtime vow of blood brotherhood. Ryu also has a trouble with his anesthetist partner, Jang Seok-ho (Jeong Yu-seok), in a different opinion about Ryu’s idea on using hypnosis rather than anesthesia during a difficult surgery, Jang against the idea partly because its been recommended by a strange hypnotherapy speacialist, Oh Chi-hun (Kim Tae-woo) who is seem knows Jang’s past little secret. When Heui-jin becomes suddenly collapses with an inexplicable fever, she was taken to the emergency room and they found a mysterious object in her stomach. It has no choice but perform a surgery to bring out the thing, Ryu who is reluctant to operate on his wife was forced to lead the operation when there isn’t time to get another surgeon, but things go horribly wrong.
Product Details:
Operation Rating: 7/10
