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World Fantastic Cinema

Hansel and Gretel

YIM Pilsung

Korea2007 116min 35mm Color

Synopsis

This is the second feature film from director YIM Phil Sung who had stirred critical controversy with his first, Antarctic Journal. As a new significant start according to YIM, he took on the fantasy genre, a rare thing in Korean cinema, and the movie tells the story of Eun Soo's strange experience as she is led into a remote house by a mysterious girl after getting lost in a forest following a car accident. Although Hansel and Gretel recreates fairytale moments with tremendous artistic effort, it is not all beauty and morals, depicting the dark secrets of a strange home inhabited by children cut off from the world by a horrendous past. The film is a Korean interpretation of hideous crimes, as well as the styles of The Night of the Hunter and The Twilight Zone. It is particularly interesting to see props such as rabbits and TV that pay homage to Joe Dante's segment from The Twilight Zone: the Movie. The child actor SIM Eun Kyung shines as if a fairy came to life. (KIM Jong Chul)

Diretor

YIM Pilsung

Born in 1972. YIM started making a few short films from 1997. Among them, Baby was invited to Venice Film Festival and Karlovy Vary International Film Festival In 1999. He debuted with his feature Antarctic Journal, a story about mysterious deaths in the Antarctic.