It's been over a year since I've seen this, I'll have to rent it again. I do remember I liked it alot for a korean movie. I'm not much for foreign films either.
Those of you who have seen films like Se7en and The Silence of the Lambs when watching this will have an overwhelming feeling of deja vu. H is pretty much the Korean equivalent of those and many other murder/mysteries.. But obviously inferior.
I was annoyed that the film wasn't as original as I was hoping for. Virtually everything in here you have seen somewhere before, that's including story, the style of murders and even the killer; the film is basically a rehash of all of those great films of the same genre.
And yet the film manages to grip you and get you very involved in the story and characters. Not quite holding you consistently and all the way through but enough for you to want to keep watching and for you to want to find out what happens in the end. The reason I personally wanted to keep watching was the amount of shocking and very grisly (and sometimes hard to watch) scenes of various aftermaths of murder or pretty exciting chase scenes. I certainly applaud H for going that but further than some other films of the genre and at least being almost outlandish (if I can use such a strong word). But unfortunately the unoriginality of the bigger picture overshadows the certain moments of originality that the film has.
The film does however have some strong positives to it that fortunately makes the film perfectly wtachable and you can ultimately forgive the film for being so unoriginal. First of all, like many Korean films, this film is very dark and grippingly creepy. The atmosphere throughout the film was very tense and you almost always have a sense of "what's going to happen next". Secondly the acting in the film is very solid. A Tale of Two Sisters star Yum Jung-ah stars as the lead female in the story, someone who was very well cast in my opinion. It was very important for this film to have good performances to help redeem it from being unwatchable.
Because of its unoriginality I should be very much against this film. And yet I am was drawn to it, I enjoyed being emmersed in its story and the sense of "who done it?" kept me very much wanting to see what happens in the end. Director Lee Jong-hyuk should be proud for making an at least passable first atetmpt at a film but I just hope that he learns from his mistakes and makes a much better film next time round.
Cross between 'Seven' and 'silence of the Lambs'; but I think i would've enjoyed it more if it were dubbed in English. Still, it managed to have an amazing, terrifying ending***
was this the movie with the female cop who had esp?? i couldn't even watch the whole thing, the story bites too hard from the hannibal series and the whole x-files cop factor was just ridiculous.
Long and Confusing. - A film with good visual style and amazing throat slitting scenes, But it's a little too extreme in it's plot twists. - 'H' stands for "Haha, that's what H means!"
MCT:May 24, 2008
MCT:January 23, 2008
MCT:July 19, 2007
MCT:July 5, 2007
MCT:October 15, 2006
