[Cello]
Plot:The cellist and teacher Mi-Ju Hong is invited by her colleague and friend Sun-Ae to assume the position of professor in her renowned institution, and gives an invitation to the concert of Hae-Young Kim, the little sister of her former school best friend Tae-Yeon Kim who died in a car accident. Before leaving the building, she is threatened by a former student that failed in her test. While driving home, she escapes from an accident on the road and once at home, she has a surprise birthday party with her husband and prosecutor Jun-Ki, her daughters the slow Yoon-Jin and the young Yoon-Hye Song, and her sister-in-law Kyung Ran, whose fiancée is in Manhattan in a MBA course.

On the next morning, her husband hires the dumb housekeeper Ji-Sook, a very weird woman. While shopping with Yoon-Jin, the girl is fascinated in a cello and Mi-Ju buys the instrument. After the mysterious death of her dog Sunny, creepy events happen with Mi-Ju, jeopardizing her family, while she insistently listens to her husband voice saying "open your eyes".

Cast:Hyeon-a Seong, Da-an Park, Ho-bin Jeong, Jin Woo, Na-woon Kim.

My Thoughts:Twisted in a classical way.

Review:Caught "Cello" for the first time last night and I have to say I was pretty impressed with it. The film follows a cellist who also teaches kids how to play the cello. Her friend invites her to take on a new position as professor, but soon the cellist Mi-ju Hong is threatened by a student who failed her course. Mi0ju tries to quell the confrontation in a civilized manner, but the girl seems very serious about making her point. So serious in fact that on the way out, she grabs Mi-ju's arm and ends up delivering three weird looking and deep scratches to her arm.

From there on out, Mi-ju's life begins to take an eerie and sinister turn filled with near death accidents, deaths all around her, and her husbands strange repeating of a particular phrase. "Cello", written and directed by Woo-cheol Lee...is a very twisted and eerie blend of psychological horror, classical horror, and asian horror. The film takes three very difficult brands of horror and manages to mix them together quite nicely. This film doesn't rely too much on visual stuff i.e. blood, gore, and the likes.

It tries to be alot smarter than that, and succeeds. The film throws the viewer alot of curveballs, and really doesn't lay things out very smply at all. Just when you think you've got the film figured out, it throws you for another loop and keeps you guessing. The films events also set up alot of different avenues for it to explore, and it explores them all in a candid way...not really going too deep into either one but going just deep enough to give the viewer some hope that that particular avenue might indeed be the films ultimate reveal.

What's creepiest of all about "Cello" is it's atmosphere. The movie doesn't use any sort of score, but instead going in line with it's title, has the sound of "Cello" music playing in most of it's scenes to act as it's musical score when it's necessary. The situation at hand in the movie, mixed with it's quiet atmosphere, and a very creepy female ghost, really give the viewer a chilling effect while watching the picture. The acting in the movie further emphasizes that chilling effect due to the actors really playing their parts well and making the situation a very believeable and realistic-feeling one.

"Cello" shines the most in it's final 15 minutes where it works the female ghost into the story alot more and ends the movie of a very twisted and slightly confusing note. While most asian horror films doesn't necessarily wait until the third act to work their ghosts into the overall plot, this film doesn't go through major lenghts to show off it's spectre early on, and in fact waiting until act three to really bring her into the story and to affect the ending in a cataclysmic way was a genius move.

"Cello" is a slow moving supernatural horror film, which really requires an attentive attitude in order to fully understand the picture. It's more of the thinking asian horror film fans type of picture more than most other asian horror films are.

Positives:Very atmospheric, creepy ghost, very smart story, and great ending.

Negatives:Nothing major.

Overall:Good picture.





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