Korean movie "The Whispering" review, part one

 

 Release Date: July 13, 2018  Length: 88 minutes  Director/Writer: Choi Sang-Hun

 Main Cast: That's Choi Hee-Jin above and doesn't she make your eyes pop out?!?! We mainly just see these six characters though there are few other appearances by some creepy ghosts(?). It's just a few months before these six friends will be graduating from Mii-Gok high school and after studying so hard for their CSAT(college exam) the group thought why not take a final trip together? Which is what they did and they did remain together as.... none of them came back alive!!!!

So Ju-Yeon as Eun-Ha.... Smartest person in class yet she bombed on the CSAT. Now she has to study even harder for different tests and prepare for interviews if there's any chance of attending a respectable college. Think it's more her mother's dream than Eun-Ha's on attending college and got the impression she was so tired of studying. She shouldn't have done it but when Min-Woo invited her on this trip Eun-Ha gave in and accepted. She also often sees ghosts and such when she falls asleep or nods off which happens often.

Kim Min-Kyu as Min-Woo.... Eun-Ha's best friend, it's a platonic relationship but think he wouldn't mind dating her! Min-Woo's dream is to be a singer and he is very talented, he's also the most level headed of the six friends who are all in the same class. 

Choi Hee-Jin as Jung-Yoon.... The class 'Queen' and why not as she's attractive to the Nth degree in this film! But Jung-Yoon isn't a stuck-up person and it was she who suggested taking this final trip together before graduation.

Kim Young as Woo-Song.... The class prankster and has his own YT channel called 'Beautiful Life'. Woo-Song is often taking videos of his friends which constantly annoys them but to date that channel wasn't all that popular.... until this trip....

Kim Tae-Min as Dung-Ii.... He actually may be the smartest student in the class but won't be attending college as his goal is to take the Civil Servant exam. Dung-Ii's mother runs a daycare center and it's her van they use to take this trip.

Park Jin as Hae-Guk.... Biggest enigma of this film as we really didn't get to know him all that well. Bit of a quiet man who seems to be an athlete but there's something about him that all the others like.

Also.... Lee Yoo-Mi as Ji-Ein... Was Eun-Ha's best friend until dying a year ago(?) and we never did learn why. She often pops up in Eun-Ha's dreams/nightmares.

 Trailer

   

 If there's one thing I'm a sucker for are low budget and Z-rated films, mainly horror ones. Never have mentioned it but my weakness is those worse than schlock movies from the 50's and 60's, have seen too many to count! So when I heard this may have been the worst Korean horror film from the last decade knew it had to be viewed! But to me these are my most enjoyable ones and I truly hate the big hit films. This was actually a decent film or I wouldn't be doing a post for it. In the past have done many reviews for less than stellar dramas and movies but no longer, if something ends up being reviewed then it has to be somewhat of a good film/drama.

 One good thing about these B-movies is that it stars many actresses I wasn't aware of or perhaps ones I do know where it was their first film. At the top is Choi Hee-Jin and you'll see how fabulous she looked in the screenshots, it's been a long time since I've done any posts for Korean actresses but will be working on a few for her, wow!!!! So let's get to the review, the setting is a high school though all of the cast were in their twenties. There were a lot more creepy scenes than I thought and most were quite effective, do recommend checking out all of the screenshots to get more of that 'creepy atmosphere'. For movie reviews I end up doing two medium sized posts as it can be a chore reading one long one. Took 92 screenshots for this 88 minute film so this first post will go up to about the 46th one and the next post will continue from there. There's a synopsis on a few sites which isn't quite accurate, the main thing being the friends don't disappear and turn up dead one at a time.

 That top pic is from the first scene that lasted about two minutes, it was a flashback of an incident which took place twenty years ago and will get to that a bit later. But it's present time or 2018 at the Mii-Gok high school, the seniors have just finished their grueling CSAT college exams. There's only a few months to go in the school year and seems only one of the main six characters wants to attend college. That's Eun-Ha in the fourth screenshot, she's being interviewed by the 'class clown' Woo-Song who has his own YT channel called 'Beautiful Life'. He had been interviewing all of his friends who were getting slightly annoyed with Woo-Song and it's not the first nor last time that'll happen! But back to Eun-Ha who is the smartest student in the class and it appeared she could go to the college of her choice. That's not going to happen as Eun-Ha really bombed on the CSAT exam and now her future is up in the air. Her mother was furious and has told Eun-Ha she had better study twice as hard for different tests if she wants to enter a respectable college. During that scene had the impression it's the mother who wants to see Eun-Ha attend a top notch school and she seems very tired of studying so hard every night as look where it got her!

 In the bottom screenshot is Eun-Ha with her current best friend Min-Woo, the relationship has always been platonic. Of the six characters Min-Woo seems to be the most decent person and also the one respected the most. His goal is to be a singer though we never saw him perform but as Eun-Ha says above his debut will be soon. In the second to last screenshot we see a very frightened Eun-Ha and you'll see many others like that too. She has a bad habit of dozing off whether it's in class or at home studying. When that happens Eun-Ha will usually have a nightmare which was happening in that screenshot. Very often she sees the image of Ji-Eun who happened to be Eun-Ha's best friend up until a year ago(?), she's now deceased and it was never mentioned how it happened but Eun-Ha feels guilty about it. Up until now we've met each of the six main characters but only know about three of them, that'll be changing very soon as the six need to unwind after those brutal exams. 

 The screenshot right above is yet another nightmare of Eun-Ha's which she had when the six were in their journey to wherever, their vacation destination was never revealed save it was at a beach. But before that the friends met up to discuss what they should do now that the exams were over, school only has a few more months to go so should they for once do something memorable? That third screenshot down features Jung-Yoon in the right and what an absolute beauty she is!!!! She could be considered the 'Class Queen' yet she's not snobby at all and seems to like all five of her friends quite a bit. Jung-Yoon was the one who suggested going on a trip but where should it be they all mused. Woo-Song said the beach was the perfect place even though the weather was still a bit cool, perhaps this took place in March? Of the six the only one with a license is Dung-Ii, that's him in the second screenshot and his goal is to be a civil servant. His mother owns a daycare center so Dung-Ii has been enlisted to borrow it's van and also drive them to the beach, he wasn't happy about it but agreed. The sixth person is a beefy boy named Hae-Guk and we really never saw much of him. He was kind of quiet and had the build of a linebacker but he must be a solid enough guy to have such good friends.

 On the way there all fell asleep save of course for Dung-Ii, that's when Eun-Ha had her nightmare of all being slaughtered in the van! Dung-Ii had been using the van's GPS system to guide them to the beach motel but he found it odd they had to go down a dirt road. Halfway down was a fork in the road and no one had woken up yet to help out Dung-Ii who chose to go to the left, that was not right(?)! He did reach the beach but far away from their original destination and below you can see where they ended up. It was an abandoned amusement park and doesn't that screenshot of it look creepy(?), it does and it's much more eerie when the fog rolls in. Though abandoned the park is still in good shape and the power is still on as the rides are working. One attraction really drew the interest of Eun-Ha which was the Haunted Cave but the door was shut, is there a reason she was attracted to this cave? In the second to last screenshot above before the trip Eun-Ha was looking through her old friend Ji-Eun's diary, as you can see she had drawn a picture of an amusement park and is it the same one? From that drawing it really did look so but now the question for the group is to stay or head to their motel?

 Before they could decide what to do appearing out of nowhere was a very old Shaman woman who told them to leave immediately for the place was cursed. We then saw a brief flashback from 25 years ago when the amusement park opened, we learned the name of it is Jung-Ju Land. That same Shaman woman was there at the opening ceremony saying the land was haunted but the owner opened the park anyways. His name was Choi who you can see above and for five years this park was very successful. However the recession hit and the park really suffered because of that, Choi thought how can he make it a success again? His creepy plan was to have real dead bodies(!) in the cave called 'Ghost House' and of course that never happened. But what did take place was that Choi murdered his wife and seven year old daughter, think the park was named after her. That was twenty years ago and it appears the park has remained closed since then but it also appears someone has been keeping tabs on it as it's not all that rundown plus the power is still on and the rides work.

 So after the encounter with the Shaman the six departed but only for a short while. It was getting late and the group wouldn't make it to the motel on time, Woo-Song suggested going back to the park which didn't make all happy but what other alternatives were there? Woo-Song's plan was to spend the night at the Ghost House but shouldn't it have been called a Ghost Cave? Woo-Song's real reason for doing this was to film their night in the cave and stream it live on his YT channel, perhaps he can finally become popular! All of the action was supposed to be staged and some of his friends, especially Dung-Ii, didn't approve of it but went along for now. At first all of the action truly was staged and the live viewers kept on rising rapidly. A lot of the action didn't need to be staged as this cave truly was very eerie, there were a lot of special effects such as fake dead bodies and eyeballs hanging from the ceiling but were they really fake? Eun-Ha didn't want to get involved and she crept away, meanwhile Dung-Ii and Hae-Guk hid in coffins to scare the viewers later. So it was just Min-Woo and Jung-Yoon who were being filmed by Woo-Song, their acting left something to be desired but the viewers kept increasing. That brings us to the end of this first post and just went up to the 42nd screenshot but the next review shouldn't be any longer. The screenshots go in order of the action so use them to follow the story a bit better.