Hansel and Gretel, the two German kids who nearly became somebody’s meal, need little introduction. The characters in this Brothers Grimm classic have been used as a lesson about stranger danger and resilience for years. And while Hansel and Gretel’s ordeal has been put on screen multiple times — both faithfully and loosely — Yim Pil-sung’s 2007 movie is one of the more distinct adaptations. This Korean reimagining retains the essence of the influential fairy tale while also adding its own unique twists.
Hansel and Gretel was one of several movies from the golden age of South Korean Horror — often referred to as “K-Horror” in the West — to be based on fairy or folk tales. While Arang and A Tale of Two Sisters dug into local Korean lore, other movies drew from European narrations. However, much like Cinderella and The Red Shoes, Hansel and Gretel’s interpretation of its basis is rather liberal.
Hansel and Gretel was one of several movies from the golden age of South Korean Horror — often referred to as “K-Horror” in the West — to be based on fairy or folk tales. While Arang and A Tale of Two Sisters dug into local Korean lore, other movies drew from European narrations. However, much like Cinderella and The Red Shoes, Hansel and Gretel’s interpretation of its basis is rather liberal.
- 2/7/2024
- by Paul Lê
- bloody-disgusting.com
“Hansel and Gretel” tries a different approach to the supernatural horror genre, by transforming a classic fairy tale.
Eun-soo, a young man with some family troubles, has a car accident that leaves him injured into the woods. As he tries to get back to the road, he meets a girl with a lantern, who eventually invites him into her home. In there, he meets her two siblings, older Man-bok and little Jeong-sun, along with their parents, Yeong-sik and Su-jeong. Initially, they seem like a happy family, but as time passes, there are indications for the opposite. Eun-soo eventually realizes that he cannot get away from that forest, and that something very strange is happening in this house. Things become even more complicated when Deacon Byeon and his partner Hye-young appear in the woods, as Eun-soo discovers the children’s true story.
Yim Pil-sung pens (with Kim Min-sook and Kim Ji-hye...
Eun-soo, a young man with some family troubles, has a car accident that leaves him injured into the woods. As he tries to get back to the road, he meets a girl with a lantern, who eventually invites him into her home. In there, he meets her two siblings, older Man-bok and little Jeong-sun, along with their parents, Yeong-sik and Su-jeong. Initially, they seem like a happy family, but as time passes, there are indications for the opposite. Eun-soo eventually realizes that he cannot get away from that forest, and that something very strange is happening in this house. Things become even more complicated when Deacon Byeon and his partner Hye-young appear in the woods, as Eun-soo discovers the children’s true story.
Yim Pil-sung pens (with Kim Min-sook and Kim Ji-hye...
- 8/29/2016
- by Panos Kotzathanasis
- AsianMoviePulse
Three days of intense meetings and project pitches ended in a ceremony presentation of awards last night for the Naff, Asia's premiere gathering for genre film projects. 24 different film projects were pitched to several companies, with over 500 meetings taking place, a record for the event, and a testament to both the importance of BiFan as the premiere destination for genre cinema in Asia, and the work of those behind Naff to foster new talent. This year's (directors Joko Anwar and Yim Pil-Sung, producer and acquisitions consultant Annick Mahnert of Screen Division, and Head of Development and Production at Ivanhoe Pictures, Katherine Lee, scrutinized the projects on criteria of marketability and artistic strength. We here at ScreenAnarchy are especially proud. Our South Korean correspondant,...
[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...
[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...
- 7/29/2016
- Screen Anarchy
Directors: Pil-Sung Yim, Jee-woon Kim. Writers: Jee-woon Kim, Pil-Sung Yim. Cast: Doona Bae, Joon-ho Bong and Ji-hee Jin. For some people, December is Doomsday month. The obsession may have some film buffs exploring creative ways cinema has for how the Earth can stand still, or simply go boom. A well-made anthology titled Doomsday Book (인류멸망보고서) fits the bill. Quite literally, the movie's original title means, "Report on the Destruction of Mankind." Instead of the Earth rebelling against civilization, the onus is on what humanity can do unto itself. That can make for some great storytelling. Each tale is unique in relating how one solitary act can doom an entire world, or nation in the first short, "Brave New World (멋진 신세계)." This amusing tale looks at how a nerdy research scientist, Yoon Seok-woo (Ryo Seung-beom) unwittingly unleashes the zombie apocalypse by discarding a rotten apple. He is set up by...
- 12/28/2012
- by noreply@blogger.com (Ed Sum)
- 28 Days Later Analysis
It’s no big secret I love horror films, but 2012 hasn’t been a great year. In my top ten, three films carry over from 2011, two won’t be released until 2013, two are animated and another isn’t much of a horror film. With that said, 2012 gave us Berberian Sound Studio and Cabin In The Woods, and for that, I am forever grateful. Here is a list of the 21 horror films from 2012 I liked best.
****
#1: Berberian Sound Studio
Directed by Peter Strickland
Written by Peter Strickland
UK, 2012
Berberian Sound Studio reminds us of the power of sound over the visual image, and can surely join the ranks of Francis Ford Coppola’s The Conversation and Brian DePalma’s Blow Out as an absorbing appreciation of sound design. But both thematically and visually, Berberian is more of a descendant of the school of David Lynch and Roman Polanski. As things get increasingly,...
****
#1: Berberian Sound Studio
Directed by Peter Strickland
Written by Peter Strickland
UK, 2012
Berberian Sound Studio reminds us of the power of sound over the visual image, and can surely join the ranks of Francis Ford Coppola’s The Conversation and Brian DePalma’s Blow Out as an absorbing appreciation of sound design. But both thematically and visually, Berberian is more of a descendant of the school of David Lynch and Roman Polanski. As things get increasingly,...
- 12/9/2012
- by Ricky
- SoundOnSight
Hey , boils and ghouls… Jeff here with another Toronto After Dark 2012 update for you all! Sunday was Day 4 of Toronto After Dark 2012, and as usual, it was longest day of the festival, with four different features and four short films. Usually by Sunday night, folks are hitting what I call the Tadff Wall… You’re tired from several days of back-to-back films, late nights at the pub, and – for those of us who review films and cover the festival – trying to find time to do your writing. This year was no different, and while it wasn’t a bad day of films, I have to say that it was fairly middle-ground; especially for a day with almost 12 hours of back-to-back screenings.
Things kicked off at 1pm with a short film called Frost, which I did not get a chance to see due to some subway delays. I heard the film was pretty crazy though,...
Things kicked off at 1pm with a short film called Frost, which I did not get a chance to see due to some subway delays. I heard the film was pretty crazy though,...
- 10/22/2012
- by Jeff Konopka
- The Liberal Dead
Doomsday Book
Written and directed by Jee-woon Kim and Pil-Sung Yim
South Korea, 2012
H.G. Wells, a godfather of modern apocalyptic literature, once said that, “all this world is heavy with the promise of greater things, and a day will come, one day in the unending succession of days, when beings who are not latent in our thoughts and hidden in our loins shall stand upon this earth as one stands upon a foot-stool and shall laugh and reach their hands amidst the stars”.
Decades later and continents away, Jee-woon Kim and Pil-Sung Yim’s Doomsday Book, an anthology of apocalyptic possibilities, channels the ethos of Wells’ work in a distinctly Korean endeavour. Broken into three disparate parts, the film is at times silly and farcical, and at others profound and insightful.
The film kicks off with a segment called A Brave New World, as in the Aldous Huxley novel of the same name.
Written and directed by Jee-woon Kim and Pil-Sung Yim
South Korea, 2012
H.G. Wells, a godfather of modern apocalyptic literature, once said that, “all this world is heavy with the promise of greater things, and a day will come, one day in the unending succession of days, when beings who are not latent in our thoughts and hidden in our loins shall stand upon this earth as one stands upon a foot-stool and shall laugh and reach their hands amidst the stars”.
Decades later and continents away, Jee-woon Kim and Pil-Sung Yim’s Doomsday Book, an anthology of apocalyptic possibilities, channels the ethos of Wells’ work in a distinctly Korean endeavour. Broken into three disparate parts, the film is at times silly and farcical, and at others profound and insightful.
The film kicks off with a segment called A Brave New World, as in the Aldous Huxley novel of the same name.
- 10/21/2012
- by Justin Li
- SoundOnSight
★★☆☆☆ Jee-woon Kim and Pil-Sung Yim's portmanteau film Doomsday Book (2012) started production in 2006 when the first two segments of the piece were complete. Fortunately - or perhaps unfortunately - a year later the directors were able to raise funds for the third part of the anthology of shorts. All three shorts that make up Kim and Yim's own Doomsday Book are a critique on modern living in some form or another, a quasi-pithy take on well-established genres - with the first applying a unique spin on zombie apocalypse.
Read more »...
Read more »...
- 10/11/2012
- by CineVue UK
- CineVue
The first thing any review of an anthology film usually mentions is that the format, by its very nature, invariably leads to a mixed bag when it comes to quality. Doomsday Book, a new anthology film from South Korea, is a mixed bag… but thankfully the quality only ranges from good to fantastic. Directors Pil-sung Yim (Hansel & Gretel) and Jee-woon Kim (I Saw the Devil) combined forces to deliver an oddball look at mankind’s demise. Some say the world will end with zombies, and others say with an asteroid. This three part film offers up both options and tosses in a third less literal end that serves as more of an awakening. All three segments have observations to share on humanity, and while the book-ending parts do so with blackly comic heart the middle story is a ruminative commentary on what it means to be a human with designs on the spiritual. Yim...
- 9/21/2012
- by Rob Hunter
- FilmSchoolRejects.com
Director: Pil-Sung Yim. Review: Adam Wing. You may think that you're familiar with the story of Hansel And Gretel but here's a question for you, what would have happened if Hansel And Gretel were forever trapped in the dark woods? It's a question that director Yim Phil-Sung sets out to answer in this fantasy horror movie that rips out the pages of reality and throws them in to the oven. In the Grimm Brothers' folk tale the two young children find their way back home after pushing the evil witch into a burning furnace. But like the Grimm's version of Snow White before it (as seen in the movie A Tale Of Terror and not the fluffy Disney, ooh look it’s a singing comedy midget version) the cookie dough infused ending thinly disguises a tale dripping in tragedy and torment. With Hansel And Gretel we discover a bleaker tale of poverty,...
- 4/29/2009
- 24framespersecond.net
Korean director Yim Pil-sung wowed us all here last year with his mind bending horror fantasy pic Hansel & Gretel, and it seems he’s not done with the genre just quite yet. His next project titled “Flower of Evil” will apparently delve into the dark side of sexuality. Flower while set in Seoul, will feature an American in the male lead (no word who yet) role and both English and Korean dialogue. The story revolves around David, an American business exec heading the Korean office of a multinational company. Conservative and happily married with kids, he never-the-less falls for In-Hwa, a beautiful, young Korean woman whose double nature drives him into obsession and madness. “The Good, The Bad, the Weird,” producers Barunson Film Division will be fronting the project. Source...
- 2/15/2009
- 24framespersecond.net
imdb.1eye.us, Inc. takes no responsibility for the content or accuracy of the above news articles, Tweets, or blog posts. This content is published for the entertainment of our users only. The news articles, Tweets, and blog posts do not represent IMDb's opinions nor can we guarantee that the reporting therein is completely factual. Please visit the source responsible for the item in question to report any concerns you may have regarding content or accuracy.