Dan Ashley (DanLives1980) R-Point is essentially a small horror film that pays homage to such Japanese horrors as The Grudge or The Ring, but then also to classics such as Apocalypse Now and Full Metal Jacket, and is a film I rate highly as an enjoyable and effective wartime ghost story.A disgraced Lieutenant, a stone cold Sergeant and a literal Dirty Dozen of the South Korean army's VD infected. You can tell that the brass doesn't care whether these men come back or not. They're expendable and the mission is damned from the start anyway. The only reason they're there is the incentive that if they complete the mission, they get to go home.Their mission is to enter R-Point, a strategic vantage point on an island between South Korea and Vietnam and find the missing men sent there and having disappeared after sending a very strange distress call back to HQ.R-Point is a cheap little horror film that makes the very most of what it does have to offer, and that is atmosphere and suspense. The visuals are beautiful, the location is beautiful and even if the dialogue is a bit silly at times, the actors do a damn fine job considering I don't know any of them.From start to finish, R-Point subtly builds tension and atmosphere and plays on the imagination using the power of suggestion, allowing for multiple agendas and outcomes to come of what happens throughout.Conventionally it doesn't do anything new but admirably improves an old and exploited genre that has seen a small comeback with the likes of Deathwatch and Outpost, relying on human drama, intrigue and multiple strand narratives to keep the audience guessing as to how the end will happen rather than what the outcome will most typically be.Untypically, its characters are all very different people with complex pasts and concerns in their lives. No one is typically maddened or emotionally disturbed by the war. In fact it is highly suggested that the toughest of the platoon's soldiers are liars who have barely even seen combat and are terrified by the prospect. Having said all that, I feel that the climax is a bit of a let down, in the sense that so much tension built is spent on revealing the not so clever conclusion. It saves itself by being kind of creepy and I suppose by giving a nod to classic Asian ghost stories. But it seemed like it was going to be different and it gave no real surprises.Still a fantastic film and very well made but don't hold your breath... if you can help it!

thisissubtitledmovies excerpt, full review at my location.It almost sounds like any schoolboys dream: war and horror in one package. However, watching this supernatural Vietnam War movie is much more of a nightmare than a dream, but in the best possible way. The movie was released in Korea in 2004, with the title R-Point, and is the fourth highest grossing Korean horror film of all time. It is now being released here on DVD as Ghosts Of War, exclusively available from Sainsbury's.For any fan of Asian horror, Ghosts Of War is an absolute must - and sure to please. It has had huge success in its native country of South Korea, and when you see it, you can see why. It has enough suspense, tension, fear and paranoia to keep anyone awake for days. After watching Ghosts Of War, you will be left with no doubt in your mind that war is indeed hell, albeit good, scary fun!

poe426 Unlike most alleged "fright films," R-POINT boasts some very impressive-and very spooky- moments. For me, the spookiest has to be the scene where a pair of soldiers cut off from their platoon see what they believe to be their companions creeping stealthily through a field of high grass and fall into step alongside them... only to come to realize that they are, in fact, all alone in said field... Now that's spooky! I found only two flaws worth mentioning: one, the alleged "acting" of the "American" soldiers. One can overlook the sometimes "broader" performances of the Asian actors in Asian films- but to come across such a just plain bad performance by an English-speaking character in an otherwise acceptable ensemble is jarring. The only other bur under my saddle would be the scene where a soldier sitting on a step is suddenly drenched with blood from above. In the movie itself, no explanation is even attempted. In the extras, however, we learn that this was blood spilling from a helmet dangling above the unsuspecting soldier. Why this wasn't made clear in the movie itself is never made clear (if you see what I'm saying)... Overall, R-POINT is an often genuinely spooky movie. Just don't forget to check out the extras.

William Holttinen I checked this movie because it was rated better than average here. But I didn't like it, mostly because of the stupid, screaming, brainless soldiers that are all the time in the edge of mass hysteria, even though first there's no real reason for that. They scream, cry, shout and act like a bunch of baboons. And I can assure you, that's not the way a South-Korean soldier would act. The "horror" isn't really there, some really awful gore-like "effects", the atmosphere isn't frightening...blah blah blah...dialog is absurd from time to time. And in the end you are not really sure what was the whole friggin' point whit the .. well...no spoilers here.As a fan of gore, horror, medical abnormalities, shocks and so on, this movie offered me nothing but screaming soldiers running like headless chickens.But I must admit that OK, the ending was better than I thought.I fell asleep in the halfway of this movie in the first time...so...