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[Voice]
Plot:While training after hours in her high-school, the aspirant singer Park Young-Eon is mysteriously killed and her body vanishes. Her ghost is invisible and trapped in the school, but her best friend Kang Sun-min, who broadcast in the lunchtime in school, is able to hear her voice. After the suicide of their music teacher, Sun-min, aided by her mate Cho-Ah, finds that another student, Hyo-Jung, died in the same elevator trunk some time ago. Meanwhile Young-Eon recalls details of her life, disclosing why she died.
Cast:Ye-ryeon Cha,
Ok-bin Kim,
Seo-hyeong Kim,
Hyeon-kyeong Lim,
Eun-kyeong Na,
Ji-hye Seo.
My Thoughts:A different kind of Asian horror.
Review:If there's one thing Asian horror movies do well, and have in common, it's a high scare factor. "Girls High School Horror"...aka..."Voice", was first released in South Korea back in 2005, and hit DVD in the U.S. in July of 2008. While the movie lacks a high scare factor like it's Asian horror counterparts, it compiles a strong story with some heavy emotional elements, and as usual, has one of those storylines, and endings, that keep you puzzled when it's all said and done, and makes for great brain food for a couple hours to figure things out.
The movie follows the shocking, supernatural events, which take place at a high-school. Two girls, and very talented singers, have mysteriously died inside a particular elevator in the school. Only the most recent to die, has come back as a ghost. Her best friend is the only one who can see and hear her. Now, she must unlock the mystery of who or what, is taking the schools most prized music students. "Voice" starts off in a creepy fashion, with a death scene that you'd never expect. In fact, the first kill of the movie should rank as one of the genre's most outside-the-box, and abnormal death scenes.
It's not on a grand scale visually, but in method, it's never been done before. Anyways, after the opening scene, which shows Park Young-Eon being murdered by a "force" of some sort, her friend Kang Sun-min ends up seeing and talking with her. Young-Eon wants Sun-min to find out who killed her and why. Problem is, there's so much other weirdness, death, and mysterious happenings at the school, that Sun-min finds herself sidetracked from this mission often.
And that's not including her trying to succeed in music class, as an aspiring singer herself. Granted, this movie plays on the whole psychological elements, but it also contains a lot of human elements such as jealousy, competition, etc. Setting up a scenario where anyone could be the killer. And for a movie where a ghost, we know from the get go, is responsible for the films first death, it takes good writing to create a scenario, and characters, who are competitive and cruel enough, to where the viewer on some level, abandons the ghost theory, and might partake in the belief that the murder is just a student or teacher.
But the movie shades away that aspect by going heavy on the ghostly elements more and more as the picture progresses. And oddly enough, the characters become darker, and morbid as the film progresses. A very smart script caviat. This is what separates American horror film Asian horror. In an American horror film, kids in a school would be dropping like flies, yet the students would still act as if nothing happened, dedicating a few minutes or so to their grief for the dead student or students.
But in this movie, as the stories of hauntings, ghosts, and actual new deaths begin to take place, the students start to become taken in by it. Depressed, dark, lethargic, not really even spirited at all. In some ways, they become about as dead on the inside, as the people who are no longer with them have become in reality. So the movie offers up a more realistic after-effect of how students at a school would deal with such grief, mixed with the stories of ghosts, and the weird happenings all around them. It has a real human effect on these characters, and creates a high level of drama which adds an element of realism to the movie.
Something you don't see these days often in horror. The performances are very strong, particularly from the two lead actresses playing Sun-min and Young-Eon. The two characters have some very strong dialogue between each other, and some very emotional moments as well. Their relationship also plays out in rocky fashion as the movie progresses. They started out as friends. But now that Young-Eon is dead, Sun-min is the only one who can see or hear her.
She engages in conversations with her dead friend, risking looking like a total freak to the rest of her class, all because of her friendship with Young-Eon. But as some of the other girls warm up to Sun-min, and some of the other girls begin to chatter about her "talking to herself", and as the mystery of who or what killed Young-Eon keeps hitting all of these dead ends with no answers...Sun-min starts to drift away from her deceased friend. Thus, her friend begins to lose her voice more and more, as Sun-min, who acted as Young-Eon's vessel in the living world, starts to become cold and distant towards her.
The films title "Voice", hints at this plot twist, while also pointing at the fact that the movie centers on a group of music students. Thus, you really have to love the way this movie is crafted to compile so much into an hour and 50 minutes, including various layers of story, and character interaction, which make the film a worthy viewing experience. The ending takes the typical Asian horror route, of making the finale a thinker.
In fact, "Voice"s ending, is probably one of the more difficult to peg amongst the vast library of previous Asian horror films. But fans of these types of horror's, should have fun trying to figure it all out. "Voice" is a strong Asian/Korean genre flick, and is worth seeing atleast one time.
Positives:A story with many different layers, strong performances, intriguing plot twists, a strong script, and one very odd, but effective, death.
Negatives:One small issue I had with the film was the ghost-appearance scenes. The way they begin, middle, and end, seemed too repetitive to work more than once.
Overall:Three and a half out of four stars.
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