qmtv Production is well made, good actors, sets, cinematography, music, editing. Decent idea. Basically, the kid is cursed, or there's a demon that pushed people to kill. But the demon idea is completely thrown out the window when they somehow shoehorn the girl's boyfriend is out for revenge. What the hell was that? If they just kept it as a demon pushing people to kill others or commit suicide, then it would be a simple idea but it would work. The idea of the boyfriend's family being wrong to or whatever that was and seeking revenge is nonsense. I saw this with English subtitles. As some other reviews mentioned that something may have been lost in the translation and/or the cultural view of the society. But I think I got the point of the film. It was well made and one can sit through it and be entertained and shocked by the proceedings. And I believe if they went back in and edited out the boyfriend nonsense this film's plot holes would be less. Everything else on how the curse or that strange boy (The demon) coming to the school and pushing people to death, is still a big plot hole. That can't be fixed in editing. Only in a remake. It is so important that writers create a story/screenplay that not only contains words, but those words create a story that's relatively complete. We don't get that with this movie. And unfortunately we don't get that with most movies.In the beginning we see a woman stabbed and dead or dying in front of a little boy. She then jumps out at the kid. Good for quick suspense and decent open. But where does that fit in with the rest of the movie? Then were introduced to the lead character and her sister in school. They go to their aunt's wedding where the aunt is pushed or jumps off a balcony. She cracks her head and tons of blood. Good visuals. I would say this woman is dead. But no. They take her to the hospital and after surgery she's in the hospital bed. Ok. Then this woman's sister starts stabbing her. Again, visually it looks great. But after 30 stab wounds the woman finally, finally dies. Ok, so now that woman is taken away. We see her once more when the lead character visits her. But never again. So, next thing we know, the lead character is being attacked by her classmate, teacher, another classmate, her mother. What is going on? We don't know. Is it a curse? There are some serious plot problems here. Where is the connection between her aunt who fell off the balcony, and her other aunt killing her sister, and now she is the target of death? Rating is a C for a B movie. 5 stars, mostly for the acting and production. Screenplay is a failure.

Paul Magne Haakonsen Based on the cover of the DVD and the fact that it is a part of the '8 movies to die for' series, then "Voices" (aka "Du saram-yida") seemed promising and it was with a certain amount of anticipation that I sat down to watch it.And now that it is finished, I must admit that I have an empty feeling and a sense of having been cheated out of something potentially great.So why did "Voices" fail to deliver? Well, because it was a predictable storyline that held no surprises to throw off the audience. And director Ki-Hwan Oh failed to impress where it mattered.The acting performances in "Voices" were good, despite of the limitations imposed by the director and the lack of a proper script.And the absence of scares and spooky moments just made the movie even more mundane - to put it mildly.This movie scores a mere four out of ten stars from me solely on the production value and acting performances.

Scarecrow-88 For about 90 minutes, practically everyone around Ga-in(Jin-seo Yun)wants her dead. A classmate. A teacher. Her male fencing partner. Her mother. Perhaps even her best friend. But, the very one she wouldn't realize is exactly the person that wishes to kill her the most.A little boy sees his mother topple over with a knife in her back and we later discover that his father went apesh#t due to stress and poverty. This corresponds with Ga-in's family we later discover with the little boy seeking revenge for he blames them mostly for his father's eventual psychotic breakdown. The film also highlights a young man who seems to follow Ga-in around yet no one seems to acknowledge him but her. Ga-in's aunt presumably leaped off a balcony(..or was pushed by her fiancé)and was eventually stabbed to death by her sister as she lie recuperating in a hospital bed. Ga-in later is sent by her father to an elderly man who tells her of a story concerning his decision to murder his wife out of rage towards her adultery. He feels his action, fueled by a voice over the phone who warned him of her adultery, has perhaps set off a chain of events where some sort of curse is running rampant hypnotizing folks into killing people they wish were dead. And, the young man who hangs around with Ga-in, like a little drooping, sad puppy with nowhere else to go, tells her to trust no one, not even herself. Eventually someone Ga-in loves so dear will unleash a fury on her family, her having no idea that he harbors such harsh feelings.There are a lot of hallucinatory scare effects designed to make the viewer jump concerning a monster which resembles red raw hamburger meat in the shape of a man always reaching out to grab Ga-in. She also sees this spooky young women, her face emerging from a pool of dripping blood, hovering over her bed, threatening that Ga-in would be next(..this happens after Ga-in's aunt stabs her sister in the hospital room). The film seems to establish that a sinister figure representing a symbolic form of harbored desire(..the desire one has against another, out of jealousy, mostly)provides people with an option to violently rid themselves of their "adversary." Ga-in stands in the way, so to speak, of certain people's happiness. The student who never benefits due to Ga-in's success as a fencer. The teammate who is one step below Ga-in in their sport, wanting her out of the way. The best friend jealous of her attaining the boyfriend she always wanted. The mother who doesn't feel appreciated. But, to be honest, I couldn't understand what happened at the end(..Ga-in's fate after a tragic murder of a relative)regarding Ga-in. I thought I had a decent understanding of what the hell was going on, but, like a lot of these films, the filmmakers involved desperately needed to throw a wild twist at us..the heroine can't get off that easy can she? That's how I felt..we watch this poor girl go through an absolute nightmare for 90 minutes and yet she must not escape. That's the mentality of horror films these days. Still, there's some great moments here and there, but this is quite a confusing experience one must endure in order to enjoy those instances of shock and awe.

GoneWithTheTwins Watching "Voices," a subtitled South Korean import, I kept asking myself: When will this movie be remade in America? It's not that I want it to be remade. It's just that, with the recent releases of "The Ring," "The Grudge," "The Eye," "Mirrors," "Shutter," and "One Missed Call" ... well, you just know it's going to happen sooner or later. When it does happen, I can only hope that American filmmakers will be able to make something out of the plot. Yes, this movie does have a plot, but God help me, I have no idea how I can describe it to you; it's one of those films that seems to intentionally forgo any degree of clarity, the story shifting gradually from vague to incomprehensible. I watched the bloody murder scenes and I read the subtitles and I studied the characters as best I could, but somehow, absolutely nothing was clicking. Now, I realize I may be at a serious disadvantage. It is, after all, a foreign language film, so it was most likely made with a very different audience in mind. Maybe there are cultural considerations I'm not aware of. In my review of "Slumdog Millionaire," I noted that the main character's sense of optimism seemed unlikely given his terrible circumstances; readers were shocked at my ignorance, and a few even took the time to inform me that I was looking at this film from a very Western perspective, that even the most downtrodden in Mumbai survive only because they find something to live for. So it's quite possible that I'm looking at "Voices" from a very Western perspective. I may in fact lack the cultural understanding required to make sense of the story, which turns back on itself so many times that it eventually seemed less like a plot and more like a frightening dreamscape. The original Korean title is "Du Saram-Yida," which literally translates as "Someone Behind You." This does accurately describe the sense of paranoia and uncertainty permeating the story. Paranoia is often times baseless and irrational, much like the story, in which a teenage fencing champion named Ga-in (Jin-seo Yun) finds herself at the mercy of an unstoppable and unexplainable death curse. At least, I think it's a curse. It seems that everyone around her wants someone else to die, and in a fit of rage, they act on it: one of Ga-in's aunts is pushed off a balcony on her wedding day, and as she recovers in the hospital, another aunt violently stabs her to death; one of Ga-in's classmates, a perfect student in all respects, becomes so jealous that she tries to stab Ga-in in the nurse's office; at a certain point, Ga-in's mother starts wielding a knife, screaming, "Die! Die! Die!" as her husband tries to subdue her. So then some supernatural force has been unleashed on Ga-in's family. Or has it? All throughout, a reclusive, sunken-eyed teenage boy named Seok-min (Ki-woong Park) keeps appearing to give her this ominous piece of advice: "Don't trust anyone. Not your friends, not your family, not even yourself." This may or may not have something to do with a bad thing that happened to him as a boy, which may or may not have something to do with the film's ending, at which point any remaining thread of plot cohesion is cut away. Watching those final scenes is like watching a demo reel of murders and surrealistic images and plot twists all edited together. It's a meaningless jumble of moments that wanted to reveal something without actually revealing it. To say I had no idea what was going on would be like saying that the surface of the sun is warm. The most maddening thing is that characters are constantly offering some kind of vague reason for what's happening. They keep talking, yet somehow they're not really saying anything. They certainly aren't saying anything understandable. How strange that a movie in dire need of clarity could have done with a lot less explanation. There's a point at which Ga-in travels outside the city to see an elderly recluse who killed his wife in a fit of rage decades earlier. Despite the fact that his scenes are annoyingly light on specifics, at least they hinted that the rest of the film would follow some kind of narrative logic. But then comes the ending. Dear God, the ending--a bleak, nonsensical muddle that reverses pretty much everything I thought I knew about the plot. This is one of the most frustrating experiences I've had in a long time. Rarely has a film worked so hard at being a confusing mess. Let it be known that I went into "Voices" with an open mind, and for the first forty-five minutes or so, I really did try my hardest to make sense of it. But at a certain point, it was obvious that there wasn't much to make sense of, and I threw in the towel. Yes, it's a frightening movie, full of gory death scenes and surprise scares and quiet moments that build tension. But when story is neglected in favor of atmosphere, you have nothing more than a thrill-a-minute funhouse ride. If I had wanted that, I would have gone to a carnival. American filmmakers will have their work cut out for them once they latch onto this screenplay and begin reworking it. Don't think it won't happen somewhere down the line. - Chris Pandolfi