a_baron Whether or not this is indeed based loosely on the grotesque fairy tale of the same name, "The Red Shoes" is a bizarre offering, even for the Korean cinema. After catching her husband in flagrante delicto, a woman walks out on him taking her precocious young daughter with her, who is being hot-housed in traditional Oriental fashion, attending dancing classes in this case.Their new home is very downmarket, although she can afford an interior designer to spruce it up for her, and it isn't only her apartment he has designs for.Then there is the little matter of the actual red shoes. Her daughter appears to be fascinated by them, and she isn't the only one, but they leave a trail of death and destruction wherever they walk. As with not a few films in especially the horror genre, the use or rather the abuse of the dream sequence leaves much to be desired, but there is a twist, perhaps the shoes are not that significant at all? Its resolution somewhat reminiscent of "Angel Heart", and the heroine faces a similar fate, deservedly so, apparently.

KineticSeoul Okay so the curse of this film is about the red shoes(yeah I know they are pink actually, but it's called the red shoes because it's symbolic of all the bloodshed it causes) draws women into taking it. Whoever first finds it, keeps it and gets the wonderful feeling of youth, but whoever else gets lured into the shoe's spell will get the urge to steals it and feel the power of youth and will die. As the movie progresses it shoes the origin of how it started, this comes from the flashback of the old era of Japan, when the happy Japanese girl with the red shoes was with a man and happy but the other women glaring, was wanting to steal the shoe and back in present time who ever steals the shoes away from someone over greed will end up dying. This is a pretty generic horror flick with ghost in it, and it depends way too much on the pop up scare for the scare factor which is okay I guess in some cases but it's just not that effective in this. You also don't care for the victims, especially the daughter because they are all pretty annoying and as heartless as it may seem, I really did not care if the daughter died. As a matter of fact I was hoping something bad happens to her cause she was the most annoying character throughout the whole film, well until it almost got to the end which was the only part that was a bit interesting, not original however. I could tell the director actually tried with the material he had, but he didn't manage to pull through, and the pop up scares are one thing but it also has way too many dream sequences to the point you get numb to it, plus the pop up scares are not scary and can be humorous sometimes. And there is some obvious plot holes that doesn't make any sense sometimes, nothing about this is effective and it just basically borrows a heck load off from other horror flicks. The cinematography was well done though, and brings out a bit of eerie atmosphere because of it. It would have been better if at least some of the twist and turns weren't so predictable, but despite that it's still better than a lot of American horror movies.5/10

hoggaglust-1 Recently, there is much criticism aimed at a seemingly stagnant Asian Horror market, with increasing remarks that the genre has run out of ideas with more and more modern releases stealing blatantly from other, more successful films such as The Ring, Ju-On and Dark Water.Whilst The Red Shoes isn't exactly an exercise in originality, 'borrowing' ideas is not the problem here. Yes, there are similarities with other movies mentioned above; we indeed have a single mother and young daughter relationship at the film's core, yes, they have a penchant for renting a dirty, run down apartment and yes, we have a cursed inanimate object - or objects - (the eponymous shoes) that reek havoc on those who encounter them.We also have atmospheric, claustrophobic cinematography; (although epileptics should be aware that there are more flashing neons here than in an 80's themed disco). We also have decent acting, but much of this is style over substance. The film takes itself deadly seriously, but the concept of haunted footwear just plain isn't frightening.With The Ring, the curse spread through various copies of the video-tape, but in order for the curse to spread here, we have to endure scenes of histrionic screaming women and girls trying to steal the shoes from each other at various times of the day/night - the whole thing just seems so unlikely. Not content to lend the shoes an air of supernatural mystery, the film-makers also 'treat' us to some pretty looking, but ultimately distracting and too frequent flash-backs where the shoes supposedly tragic (but ultimately dull) history is revealed.Finally, The Red Shoes also falls very short in the scares. I watched it twice, alone, and not one of the film's attempts to chill/shock or scare me worked. All in all, The Red Shoes will prove a bitter (and expensive at £20.00) disappointment to fans of horror, who like me, expect - if not originality, then at least to be frightened.

kleptocracy-1 I have watched a lot of Asian horror films lately, and this is certainly one of the best of the lot. The cinematography is top notch, and is made even more powerful by the lighting effects.The casting is good, the acting fine, and the direction superb. There are some images in this movie you won't be able to shake.I've noticed some people didn't like the pacing, and thought the plot borrowed too much from some standard elements of Asian horror. Personally, I think the movie was intentionally a bit oddly paced, as it leads you to the twists more effectively. From what I can tell the "borrowed" elements of plot and image merely cement this film's place in the Asian style of horror. In other words, I don't see that as a downside. All cowboy movies have horses. Big deal. It's part of the genre. There are still good ones and bad ones with many similar elements.Asian horror is the same way, and this film is one of the good ones.