Artificially Sweet, Don’t be Deceived by the Wrapping

Hansel and Gretel

Yim Pil-Sung

South Korea

2007

 

I think this is going to be the first film to be reviewed here negatively, in most parts. The reason is because “Hansel and Gretel” is a pretentious, sugar-coated, and poorly-told dark fairy-tale aspiring to be as good as the Spanish “The Orphanage” or the Mexican “Pan’s Labyrinth” whose mastery in dark fairy-tale genre have been really competitive and impeccable. However, for Yim Pil-Sung’s work, the premise is actually promising and potent but the entire film is so sleepy and to be blatant it is a disappointment for Koreans attempt to do the dark fairy-tale genre. Two movies in my Top 20 favourite ever are actually Koreans—“Brotherhood” and “Joint Security Area”, because they have a genuinely beautiful understanding of the North and South Korea conflict, of friendship, and of brotherhood—but not yet thrillers like this one.

Stranded in the magical (or cursed) forest where the only place to stay in is the House of Happy Children, Eun-soo, a young husband and soon to be a father discovers the horror that is striving in the house. First, with the sudden disappearance of the children’s parents and the eventual learning that these children are looking for appropriate parents and that the ones he thought who are the real parents of these three children are just strangers trapped in the forest like him, and also another victim of the curse, and his quest for refusing to be another victim begins. But I never really felt that quest. The problem of the film first lies with its poor storytelling, and eventually poor directing. I have always been unhappy about films who are seemingly directionless and swirl its viewers around into circles making you lose your grasp in its narrative—which is a significant aspect of film viewing. That must be the reason why I haven’t appreciated “Trainspotting” and hated my friend who recommended it, but at the end of the day, it will always boil down to the viewer’s preferences. I really didn’t hate that friend of mine though, she recommended me “Bridges of Madison County” and I loved it. What I am trying to say here is that even though we have a certain standard of distinguishing good and bad films, at the core of our judgment is a personal aspect that we will inevitably be employing everytime we watch movies. About the circling-effect that I mentioned a while ago, I understand that the purpose of it in the film is for us to feel the slipping sense of time in the character of Eun-soo and the sense of immortality in the children which late we found out I the film that these children died decades ago. The treatment looks faithful to the coherence the film is supposed to possess at the end of it, but its execution in the film looks so amateurish and even more like a mistake more than an intention. The progress of the tension in the film and/or the revelation of the secrets are so serrated making most of its element so idle and obstructive. 

The flashbacks are so unfortunate and unoriginal. They are just simple cuts to the past, and the past is so uninteresting, so well-worn, and so much a catcall—like the brutally treated children in an orphanage with the overdone dirty place and dirty faces. The strength though of the film is its visuals. The first time I scanned though the film, I am jaw-dropped by its deeply fairy-tale inspired cinematography—the yellow-orange-red-gold combination is so melting in the eye, and all the toys all over the house are so charming and pleasant to the eyes which of course is a contrary to the real thing that is happening in the house. The film also employs a lot of jump cuts. It’s too bizarre to see jump cuts nowadays especially when the situation doesn’t really require it. Jump cuts are not recommended when your scene’s energy level is relatively low and if it is not preceding any such scene. 

I hated the film because it fell into the trap of usual storytelling and common directing when in fact the over-all concept of Hansel and Gretel and its dark treatment gives you a huge chance to make it twisted and brilliant. That kind of film is something a director can play on all his creativity and imagination to make this one a hell of a film. But the product is so pale, weak, and this is something you wish should have been done on a different time, and different team because everything has been taken wrong in this film. A total waste of money and time, there are a lot of scripts waiting to be produced out there and yet this one wastes its opportunity.

“Hansel and Gretel” is of course candidly colored, but everything else is a mistake. I did not see anything new about this dark fairy tale. This one should not be compared to “The Orphanage” and “Pan’s Labyrinth”, they are way too superior in any single aspect of filmmaking.