"Warning: Do Not Play".... Korean horror movie review, part two

 

  Release Date: August 15, 2019   Length: 85 minutes   Director/Writer: Kim Jin-Won

Main Cast: There were many characters but only these four had a lot of screen time, especially the 'heroine' Mi-Jung who was on screen 90% of the time.

Seo Yea-Ji as Park Mi-Jung.... At the end of the film did have to wonder if she really was a 'heroine'! Mi-Jung is a 28 year old director/writer who has mainly done short films and she is a horror buff so her first regular film naturally has to be terrifying. However Mi-Jung can't come up with a script until one day she learns of an old horror flick that had been banned.... because the story was true?!

Jin Seon-Kyu as Kim Jae-Hyeon....Man 38 in age who had written the script for the "Warning" movie which may be remade by Mi-Jung. Jae-Hyeon was the writer of the original film done ten years before and took over as the editor/director when the rest of the staff.... DIED!!!! These days he's a broken man because of the film's curse and has warned Mi-Jung from remaking it.

Cha Yeob as Cha Gwang-Bae.... The director of the original film though we only see him in videos that were found from ten years ago which was a behind the scene doc of the movie.

Ji- Yoon-Ho as Kim Joon-Seo.... Mi-Jung's best friend who works at a coffee shop. But he knows his films and has worked on and off with Mi-Jung over the years. Joon-Seo is a whiz at computers and may have restored the "Warning" film, he just may be the only person to have viewed the entire film.

 Different trailer for the movie

 

 Back in June did get ten recent Korean horror films, actually nine as one is very old. So now have reviewed six of them and hope to also have posts for the others somewhat soon. Before getting to part two will give this film it's grade which I'll have at a very respectable 8.5/10. As is the case for most Asian horror movies it does start out slow but the ending was quite frantic and there was very little dialogue in the last 25 minutes, hopefully that'll make this post a bit shorter but it never works out that way. Dropped the grade just a tad for those final 25 minutes at times were a bit confusing and will get into why during the post but this is a film which I would recommend. Will view this again and bet some of my questions will be answered with another watch.

 You'll also notice that the screenshots are very dark and that's the way the film was shot, even at times watching it was difficult to tell what was going on. The lead role of Mi-Jung was played by an actress who I've heard of but haven't seen her in any other films nor any dramas. Her name is Seo Yea-Ji so will check her out a bit more closely and while I would like to have a post or two for her it's almost impossible these days to have them for Korean actresses. But she did have the lead role in a 2021 horror movie titled "Recalled" so that may be one you'll be seeing here in the future.

 

 No need to rehash anything as I'm sure all read the above post. Continuing on Joon-Seo was still trying to decrypt the video that Mi-Jung had found of the "Warning" movie made ten years ago. However all the files seem to be of of behind the scenes/making of footage, is the actual film somewhere in this massive file? In a spoiler it is but that's not discovered until near the end. But these videos are helpful for Mi-Jung as she can see what actually took place in  making this banned film, as mentioned in the first post Mi-Jung is only doing a partial remake of the film and most of it will be a documentary of her searching for the lost film and what the true story was. There were five people in this video, we never did see who was the cameraman. Jae-Hyun was one as he was the writer and would also be helping out doing various other tasks. Two others were named Ji-Su who was a woman and think may have been the AD, the other assistant was a man named Young-Min. Rounding out the five who worked on the film was the director Cha, all five were graduate film students at Daejong University and this project was their final exam.

 The filming for "Warning" tool place at an abandoned theater where an actual death did occur and is rumored to be haunted. That's why Cha chose this place, him and his staff told the story in these videos of what really took place and was his intention to do a remake of the film? Cha and his crew filmed "Warning" in 2008, the real death at the movie theater took place in 1980. The premise was the same as back then a horror movie was being made at this theater which has been abandoned since 1980. While filming the original movie a fire broke out which sent the actors and staff panicking but there was one who has never left the theater. There was a hanging scene about to be filmed, hanging from a noose was a female student named Soon-Mi. She was left in the noose but least had ben standing on a chair, but she too panicked and in her frenzy knocked over the chair, sure you can figure out that she hung herself!!!! So since then legend has it that Soon-Mi is seeking revenge for her accidental death and it appears no one has stepped into the theater since that tragic day. That is until Cha and his mates went there to film their picture and that legend about Soon-Mi is no false rumor!

 So since that fateful day the hung and charred ghost of Soon-Mi has been haunting the theater but with no one ever visiting she has no way to avenge her death. We never see the full figure of the ghost, just quick images of her eyes or a blurry glimpse of her hiding in the corner. Cha and his crew have reawakened the more than angry Soon-Mi, one by one she's taken care of business as four of the five students have joined her in purgatory. Four gone means there's one left who of course is Jae-Hyun, he was so scared of what may take place he left the theater early before filming began. But he secretly returned and from some hiding positions watched his mates get slaughtered one by one and how did the ghost of Soon-Mi miss him? Perhaps she didn't for for the legend has it she wrote, directed and edited the video which was entered in the film festival! The project had Jae-Hyun's name on it but the main question about it was he possessed at the time by the spirit of Soon-Mi? 

 Meanwhile Mi-Jung has discovered the address of the theater from viewing the videos. She'll head there and her mate Joon-Seo will stay back to continue working on the corrupted files in search of the completed film, it was the last time the two saw each other alive! In 2008 this abandoned theater was on the verge of collapse, a decade later it's naturally in even worse condition and there is no electricity. This scene with Mi-Jung lasted close to twenty minutes, when it was done there was only a little over five minutes to go in the film. In those twenty minutes nary a word was spoken as Mi-Jung mainly viewed the events from ten years prior, it's as if she had stepped into a time warp. Mi-Jung could see everything 'live' but none of the four soon to be victims had noticed her, she witnessed the gruesome deaths of all four and believe me their deaths were the most violent scenes of the film. Back at her apartment Joon-Seo was still watching the videos for the making of the "Warning", at times it wasn't clear if what we were viewing were the videos or what Mi-Jung was witnessing. And guess what, the deranged Jae-Hyun had also made an appearance at the theater, of course he was the only survivor because he had hid and also because he was possessed by the spirit of Soon-Mi?

 Final segment for this review. During the very dark theater scene is when Jae-Hyun confessed that after witnessing his mates perish he brought the tapes and Cha's cellphone back. From the footage he was able to create a new version of "Warning" which wasn't the smash hit he thought it would be. From Jae-Hyun's mumblings you could tell he wasn't alone in editing the film as the spirit of Soon-Mi was with him the whole time, she wants the whole world to know the true story behind her death. While at the theater an eerie and distorted clip from the original 1980 movie played on the screen, it showed the actual hanging and burning of Soon-Mi which had never been seen before. This spirit is still restless as her death hasn't been avenged, she soon set her sights on Jae-Hyun and in a similar way of dying he was hung just like Soon-Mi was... and burnt! Next up for Soon-Mi was Mi-Jung and she was given quite a thrashing by the ghost. But not enough to kill her as I'm thinking Soon-Mi still wants her horrific story told and the only person alive who could do that is Mi-Jung so she was allowed to escape. Do have to say this theater scene was the darkest I've ever seen plus there was very little dialogue.

 Back at Mi-Jung's apartment Joon-Seo had finally uncovered the original movie Jae-Hyun had created from the cursed footage. We didn't see much of what was in the film but whatever it was meant a sure death to Mi-Jung so Joon-Seo zoomed to the theater.... just as he entered is when Mi-Jung was leaving so their paths never crossed. Joon-Seo called Mi-Jung for help as he was attacked immediately by the vengeful spirit of Soon-Mi but by this time Mi-Jung had had enough of the theater and in a cruel moment sped away in her car leaving her friend to die! Mi-Jung was hurt badly by this ordeal but after a few days had recovered enough to begin work on her first main movie. She had filmed much of what took place on her cellphone, she also had quite a bit of footage from the original film.

 So the grand finale is that Mi-Jung was able to create a film that was a documentary of her searching for the answers to what happened to the 2008 "Warning" film. She also  spliced in the footage from Cha's original film that showed exactly what took place but no one knew what they were viewing actually took place. As this film came to it's conclusion Mi-Jung was at the film's premiere and the audience gave her a standing ovation. Mi-Jung had this semi creepy expression on her face and from what I could surmise by this time she became like the dead director/writer Jae-Hyun.... she's possessed by the spirit of Soon-Mi! If so the ghost must be happy as the reason for her death was finally exposed and that brought us to the end of the film. Zoomed a bit through the last 25 minutes but didn't leave any major happenings out, hate to reveal every detail as it may spoil it if you plan on watching this. So all in all this was a solid film though no classic, will view it again to clear up some questions that I have about the last 25-30 minutes. Have at least four more Korean horror films to get to, will try to review two next month and in a perfect world would like to have one a week but that'll never happen. As usual have many more screenshots to help you follow the action a bit better.